Joe Molloy
Photo by Luke Webster Brown
San Francisco has made national headlines for its struggles with homelessness and the ongoing challenge of addressing it effectively. But the City by the Bay is far from alone—this is a crisis gripping the entire nation. That’s why it was especially intriguing to learn that one of Seattle’s mayoral candidates is, in fact, a man currently experiencing homelessness: Joe Molloy.
Wait, how can someone without a fixed address run for mayor?
I wasn’t even sure it was technically legal. I kind of expected someone to say no. But in Seattle, if you're a registered voter and have lost your home, you can still run for office as long as you use your last registered address and are currently residing within the city.
During the pandemic, you lost your job and, as a result, your home. That wasn’t exactly your fault—yet you paid the high price. What’s your perspective on that?
It’s what our system is designed to do right now. I’m one of so many people with similar stories—whether it's job loss, disability, industry downsizing, or A.I. taking jobs. And here in Seattle, where we pride ourselves on progressive values, we still haven’t built a system that eliminates homelessness as an outcome.
President Trump is pushing to end the Department of Education. As someone who’s educated and currently unhoused, what do you make of that?
I can’t find much in Trump’s policies I agree with. Here in Washington, our education system is one of our top priorities—it’s actually written into how we allocate our budget. But it ends up being a double-edged sword. We protect the bare minimum, but we don’t do enough.
So you still see education as a key factor in reducing homelessness?
Absolutely. Any strong social service—education included—helps reduce homelessness. Homelessness is the result of overlapping systems: economic and housing. The housing market, for instance, is designed to build personal wealth, not provide shelter. That makes it hard to challenge because people’s financial security is tied up in it. But we can add new variables to the system—like low-cost or no-cost housing, shelters, or single-room occupancy units—so that homelessness becomes rare, not normal.
Do you see homelessness as a moral failure or an economic one?
Both. It’s a moral failure in the cultural sense, not the individual one. It’s fear. People work jobs they hate just to pay the bills because they’re scared of what happens if they don’t. That fear underpins a system that exploits people’s time and lives. It’s a low bar—and we all live under it.
If Jeff Bezos decided to send six homeless people to space, would you go?
Haha. No. That kind of performative gesture doesn’t mean anything. I’d rather see that money go toward solving actual problems here on Earth. I grew up reading science fiction and dystopian novels—there’s always a rich guy trying to escape to space instead of fixing what’s broken down here.
Catch the full interview—on film—right here. Trust us, this is one story you don’t want to miss.
