Community action/Seattle

Many individuals in the Seattle-King County area do not have a home, or access to temporary shelter. In 2026, an estimated 18,365 people in the region were experiencing homelessness. Of those, 11,829 (64%) were unsheltered individuals, approximately one in three unhoused individuals were in emergency shelters, and just under 2000 were in transitional housing.

A 2026 survey indicated homelessness was experienced at different rates by race, relative to the population. Of those individuals experiencing homelessness: 31% were white, 24% were Hispanic/Latino, 24% were Black or African American, 9% were multi-racial, 5% were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 4.2% were Indigenous, American Indian, or Alaska Native, 2.4% were Asian or Asian American, and 0.4% were Middle Eastern or North African.

According to a 2019 survey, 84% of homeless people in Seattle-King County lived in the county prior to losing their housing, 11% lived in another county in Washington, and 5% lived outside the state. The Seattle city government has described homelessness as a crisis. The Seattle city government has proposed ideas for more permanent supportive housing to address the issue.

While the effect of mental illness and drug addiction is often cited as a primary driver of homelessness, differences in per capita homelessness rates across the country are more likely to be due to differences in the cost of housing rather than other factors.

West Coast cities, like Seattle, that have higher housing costs tend to have homelessness rates five times those of areas with much lower housing costs, like Arkansas, West Virginia, Detroit, and Chicago even though the latter locations have higher burdens of opioid addiction and poverty than their West Coast counterparts.

Seattle's mild, temperate marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motorboating, sailing, team sports, and swimming. The city parks system encompasses 485 parks, shorelines, and preserved spaces that total 6,500 acres (2,600 ha)—12 percent of the land area of Seattle. These city-owned facilities include 25 miles (40 km) of boulevards and 120 miles (190 km) of walking and hiking trails, athletic fields, swimming pools, community centers, bathhouses, and performance spaces. The Trust for Public Land estimates that 99 percent of residents live within a 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) of a city park. The park prevalence has been attributed partially to a success of the system of Olmsted parks in Seattle.

The largest park in the city is Discovery Park, which includes 534 acres (2.16 km²) of forestland and saltwater beaches along the bluffs in Magnolia. Among the most popular Seattle parks are Green Lake, which is ringed by a walking trail; Alki Beach Park on the southwest side of Elliott Bay; Myrtle Edwards Park near the downtown waterfront; Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill; and Seward Park on Lake Washington. Several city parks include panoramic views of the Seattle skyline, including Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill and Gas Works Park in Wallingford, which features the preserved superstructure of a coal gasification plant closed in 1956.

Seattle has a network of recreational and commuting trails for cyclists and pedestrians, mainly repurposed from disused railroads or built alongside regional highways. The Burke–Gilman Trail, which travels for 27 miles (43 km) along the Ship Canal and Lake Washington between Ballard and Bothell, first opened in 1978 on a former railroad. The Mountains to Sound Trail connects the Interstate 90 corridor, including the north side of the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, and is planned to be extended to Snoqualmie. Other non-motorized paths include the Overlook Walk, which opened in 2024 to connect Pike Place Market to the downtown waterfront via a set of overpasses that integrate with an expansion of the Seattle Aquarium.

Golden Gardens Park is a public park in Ballard, a neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The park includes wetlands, beaches, hiking trails, and picnic and playground areas. The park's bathhouse was designated a historic landmark by the City of Seattle in 2005.

Seattle ( see-AT-əl) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It is the 18th-most populous city in the United States with a population of 784,777 in 2025, while the Seattle metropolitan area at over 4.15 million residents is the 15th-most populous metropolitan area in the nation. The city is the county seat of King County, the most populous county in Washington. Seattle's growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 made it one of the country's fastest-growing large cities.

Seattle is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canadian border. A gateway for trade with the Asia-Pacific region, the Port of Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2021.