'60 Minutes' reports on homelessness in Seattle

Anderson Cooper focuses on the Seattle area in a report about homeless Americans on "60 Minutes," airing at 7 p.m. Sunday on KIRO 7.

Among the people Cooper will speak with are a homeless postal worker and a couple with a 3-year-old who has an enlarged heart and suffers from bouts of asthma and severe croup; they spent last winter living in a tent.

During the "60 Minutes" report, Cooper also discusses the causes of the problem and possible solutions with Seattle's mayor, former City Council candidate Ari Hoffman, professor Dennis Culhane of the University Pennsylvania and Jeff Gold, a college graduate who's been homeless for nearly six years.

Cooper examines the dramatic rise in the number of unsheltered Americans in Seattle and other cities.

The postal worker, Emilee Broll, has been living in an RV parked by the side of a road for more than two years and has been delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service for nearly five years.

Broll told Cooper she decided to live in a 42-year-old Dodge Commander "because rent is obscene here. I can't afford it. I just think I'm working my butt off. And I don't want to just spend all of my money paycheck to paycheck just to survive."

The couple with the 3-year-old, Josiah and Tricia Wood, have been living in the encampment Tent City Three with their son, Ethan, sleeping in a tent.

The couple told Cooper they are recovering from drug addiction and have been clean for nearly two years. Josiah Wood has been working full-time but it has not been enough to get into an apartment and they have not found a landlord willing to take a chance on them.

"We don't want our son here. We don't want to be here. But as of right now, this is the safest place for us." 60 Minutes visits one of Seattle's tent cities, Sunday https://t.co/7oNzc738LG
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 30, 2019