By Elke Hautala
Winter 2012 Kaplan Award Winner
When I was eighteen I lived on the street for a month. It was one of those lost periods of time that now I look back on and think, “Was that really me?” I was obsessed with California; maybe not what it was but what it wasn’t – it wasn’t an old lumber town in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t a place where the all night Denny’s was the most happening spot in town. It was thrillingly opposite to the town I grew up in. Having moved around a lot in my youth, I was searching for a home. Now, many years and miles of highway later, I’m back on the West Coast. This time I’m in a city that represents creativity, ennui and gray skies, Seattle. I work in the old Pioneer Square Historic District and I pass the marginalized masses almost every day. I wonder is Seattle home to them? Or were they victims of some misstep while searching for a place to belong?
Here’s what I find out:
2,442 people living outside and another 6,382 living within shelters. This is the one night count for King County in Seattle gathered by a group of intrepid volunteers. Even the organizers admit to a probability of inaccurate reflection. With a demographic that is constantly in transition statistical data can be hard to come by. Amongst a population of roughly 600,000, almost 9,000 may not seem incredibly high, until you’ve made personal contact with those enduring such a situation. You can’t always tell by looking at someone who is homeless, sometimes it’s like a secret identity kept under wraps. Often you can read it in the lines of their faces or the wear in their clothes but not always. No one would believe just by looking at me that I once lived on the street. My story still haunts me but it fades with time. The colors have become less vivid, the footsteps more of a soft whisper, it seems more and more surreal, like the narrative of some independent film I watched once by chance. Something by a struggling director still seeking their vision.
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It’s not that uncommon a start to the story. Your basic coming of age tale, bored, yearning for adventure, imagining eating Chinese food on new hardwood floors of my own apartment in San Francisco. To an eighteen year old, Pennsylvania doesn’t seem that far away; it’s just far enough, a chasm of On the Road experience paved with imagined possibilities. Five hundred dollars burning a hole in my pocket like a winning lotto ticket, an old mini-van with a cranky transmission. A smell of fish clinging to the outdated interior upholstery testifies to the van’s previous incarnation as a delivery vehicle.
The van made it as far as Wyoming, a mountain pass in the winter. I knew it was time to pull over when even the truckers weren’t venturing out and the van sighed with protest as it refused to go above seven thousand feet. Why the northern route in the winter? This is what I would often ask myself later in silent moments of reverie. The mini-van thus abandoned to the parking lot of a Greyhound station and a one-way bus ticket in my hand, I’m finally moving again. It feels good; it keeps the comfortable picture of my cherubic former boyfriend at bay and staves off the enormous doubts in my mind that can’t seem to form into specific shapes. But nothing is impossible when you’re eighteen. When I arrive in the middle of the night in San Francisco, I haven’t thought to arrange transportation and I’ve got no place to stay. At least I’m not totally alone — my sister is with me — spiked hair, punk Misfits gear and her identically dressed flavor-of-the-month boyfriend in tow. Don’t know how much help they’ll be. We set off in the direction of Market Street with sleepy but determined eyes, shuffling our hand-me-down bags that were lovingly given over by parents with admonishing looks.
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Real change, the name implies a grassroots idealism grounded in reality and, in a way, it is. You’ve probably seen local vendors around your neighborhood. Many frequent the same spot and have regular customers. Some have attained a certain notoriety for their flair – my favorite being the gentleman I always view from the #44 bus heading to the University District. It’s always in that dark dawn before the city has awakened, pre-caffeine time here in Seattle, as the bus passes a tangled interchange, there he is. I’ve never been able to quite make out his features but he always has a decorated vest and he waves, dips and throws his Real Change papers like an acrobat warming up. He radiates joy. I silently thank him for it on my ride in to school.
It all started in 1994 when a 34-year old social activist named Tim Harris moved to Seattle from Boston and started a street paper. In these early days they shared a space with a community organization, a video store, Food Not Bombs and an anarchist collective. After a mission statement and business plan are drawn up, he begins publishing 10,000 to 15,000 copies a month and by the end of the year he has recruited his first fifty vendors. Circulation is now up to 18,000 copies per issue and the newspaper has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for its relevant features on those who have been affected by homelessness. There are 400 different vendors in the Seattle area. The group calls their program “a hand up not a hand out” because of its unique way of engaging the homeless in the workforce. Vendors pay thirty- five cents for their copies and sell them on the street for a dollar – the profit is theirs to keep.
There mission statement now reads:
Real Change exists to provide opportunity and a voice for low-income and homeless people while taking action for economic justice.
The beating heart of this socially active group is in the middle of Pioneer Square, with a somewhat ironic twist, they are located on Main street; a name that connotes the economic American dream. Tim Harris is still the Executive Director.
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Market Street in San Francisco – take one part middle class tourist culture and one part urban desperation then stir slowly. Perched on the edge of the infamous Tenderloin district, it’s a collage of weekly motels, cheap Chinese food joints and big budget commercial enterprise. Neon keeps the peace during the small hours of the night and those who have nowhere to go trace an aimless path within its asphalt boundaries. This is the scene we stumble into; a steady string of closed doors and locked entrances. Finally, an opening, some no name place with a bathroom down the hall and a bed with layers of must that likely came from the Gold rush era. It’s one of the few places that will allow three people to stay. We soon find out we are some of the only young, and straight, inhabitants. Morning, sunlight flows through the window but it’s the noise that wakes me up. The beating heart of the city, dissonant car horns, echoing voices and general urban din beckon like a siren’s song. I decide to go explore on my own and leave them to sleep while they are intertwined in a rare moment of peace. I grab a hoodie to guard against the chilly fog that infiltrates every corner and quickly stuff the room keys along with a few crumpled dollar bills in my pockets. I take a deep breath and open the door.
Concrete caverns surround me and the sheer force of humanity is intoxicating. Too much so in fact, I can’t concentrate. What am I supposed to do again? Job? Bank account? But how do I get a job with no experience and a month of college? San Francisco is like a Spanish gatekeeper with a long waiting list – I’m not on it. I try temp agencies, retail shops and restaurants but if I’m honest the truth is I don’t want to work. I’m too in love with the idea of life. Slowly, I start spending less time applying for jobs and more time hanging out with the free spirits on Haight Street, only I’m three decades too late. Now it’s all about gutter punks: Brash attitude, wrecked clothing and bad hygiene. My sister and her old man appreciate them more than I do. I’m just overwhelmed by the newness of it all. Drinking during the day and being part of a community that gives the finger to the establishment. I still wear my department store dresses only now I add the occasional pair of ripped jeans underneath.
One time we score some acid and take it out by Golden Gate Park. The world vibrates and changes, lines trace new paths in my vision and sounds echo throughout time and space – it’s amazing…for the first couple of hours. Then I just want to feel comfortable. I want to curl up at home on my old pink bedspread. We stumble down the hill to Market and stay up all night in the little weekly motel room. My sister’s boyfriend takes a walk through the Tenderloin at 2 in the morning to get donuts and swears he sees zombies. The donuts are a revelation at first but then they just taste stale and mealy; a powdered sugar rendition of old nightmares. My body feels tense, wired and exhausted all at the same time. I pull the threadbare blanket over me and try to sleep but my eyes dance behind their lids.
—
If you head towards the cityscape of downtown Seattle, or pass into its historical Pioneer Square area, you will see the visible homeless on the streets. Many have asked why does Seattle have so many homeless? The question is complicated, difficult to answer and relative compared to other large cities with many more disenfranchised denizens such as New York or San Francisco, but it is important. Some have theorized that due to the treatment of the Native Americans, the stealing of their space and building upon their burial grounds, there has been a ghostly imprint left that will forever trouble the land Seattle inhabits. Others turn to more practical explanations such as: Economics, a cycle of boom and bust, and the availability of comprehensive social service programs.
History tells us this is not a new issue. In the 1930s, south of the downtown core, a self-regulated homeless encampment with five hundred people cropped up. Paul Dorpat, a Seattle historian, explains that after initial resistance by the city it was accepted, an infrastructure was created (their own police and postal system) and many viewed it as a grand experiment in helping one’s self. Several decades later, amidst the computer and grunge era, homeless advocates tried to renew this ideal by camping out in a field by the former Kingdome. In 1998, forty people tried another venture by squatting near the financial district – they did attract attention this time but the wrong kind – their camp was destroyed and a few of the inhabitants were arrested.
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I’ve been living on the street for a week now. It didn’t seem that hard, the transition from weekly motel to here. It was almost too easy, more like falling or letting go. I’ve been sort of seeing one of the gutter punks — he’s tall, scraggly and blonde — like a big chicken with a Mohawk. I think I like him but I’m more into the idea of him; he’s someone different from my small town ideals. He also means someone to hang around with which is important in this new world. He tells me the best way to keep my stuff from getting stolen while I sleep, the most hidden corners of greenery in the parks and how to score cardboard to keep my clothes from getting damp. It’s kind of like a big adventure, or an extended camping trip, only you don’t ever go home. I start to have a little routine I follow. Get up (whenever, time ceases to have too much meaning), pack up my stuff and then head over to McDonald’s on Haight. You can use the bathroom there if you don’t draw too much attention to yourself. One day a cop stops me and my sister because he’s convinced we are runaways. We fidget as he checks our driver’s licenses – then we laugh at his imagined ignorance, I mean, we’re here by choice, right?
There is a youth shelter on Haight Street where I go to shower. The name escapes me but I remember my time there in short bursts of flashback, a room, a face, the little details. It’s an oasis there, I watch Basketball Diaries and it seems the perfect audience for screening such a film. Drug addiction, youthful angst and artistic rebellion are all favorites of the assembled crowd. One day, I want to wear my black sundress with pink flowers and I realize I haven’t shaved my legs in a while, a long while. Some of my bravado begins to fade with each passing day.
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The issue of what action to take is always preeminent in discussions of homelessness. There are economic interests, a cycle of poverty, social welfare concerns and the fact that when you get down to it, people’s fate rests in the hands of those who decide. In Seattle, starting in 1994, a vagrancy law was upheld that affected the location of many who were living on the street. It stated that no one could sit or lay down on city sidewalks in the downtown or neighborhood commercial districts from 7am to 9pm. The citation for such infractions constitutes a $50 fine. If the citation is ignored, eventually jail time could result. There is a loophole however – the law does not cover public parks or plazas – the law is specifically concerned with sidewalks in busy corridors where pedestrians move through.
A tent city program was also initiated – satirically named “Nickelsville” after former mayor Greg Nickels’ opposition to the group. These temporary camping locations, a homeless encampment usually stays for 90 days in any given place, have been regulated since 2002 in Seattle. They are usually located on the grounds of a religious or community service organization and the company that has sponsored the roving home space is called SHARE/WHEEL – an acronym for Seattle Housing and Resource Efforts and Women’s Housing, Equality and Enhancement League. The spaces occupied have all been around King County, starting with the west side of Lake Washington, moving on to the suburban east side, once they even camped on city owned land with hot pink tents to draw attention to their plight.
The program has not been without controversy though, many neighborhoods have been hesitant to support the camp and a citizen’s advisory committee was created in
2004 to address issues brought up the homeless encampments. Concerns over trash, drinking, potential crime and drug use have all been brought up by communities over the years. A 2011 King 5 TV news report even mentioned that neighbors in North Seattle had put up surveillance cameras to watch the tent city at their local church parking lot. According to SHARE/WHEEL’s website, there is a code of conduct enforced by constant daily security in the camps. It is a mini-city, a support system for its inhabitants with necessary facilities provided, bus passes for transportation and a cooking area. The logistics of not overburdening one location has kept them on the move. Last I checked Tent City 3 was in Shoreline but planning a move to Seattle Pacific University soon and Tent City 4 was in Issaquah but planning a move to Kirkland soon. It’s the life of a modern day nomad but the community structure and support are vital for those on the margins.
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One day I wake up and I’ve had enough. I’m cold, tired and hungry – it’s like a never ending cycle. My sister and boyfriend, after a near epic break up with a tossed engagement ring, have split town for back east and now I just wonder what the hell I’m doing. The bohemian ideal is like a chipped veneer, peeled back and showing an old, dirty paint job. I don’t want to get stuck in this world for lost souls. Eventually, I shed my pride, call my grandmother and get a ticket to her place in Southern California. It wasn’t without further drama, the night before I left town my gutter punk boyfriend and I stayed in a cheap hotel. In the morning he was gone and so was a bunch of money from my wallet; a not very welcome introduction into the adult world.
I keep coming back to this one specific picture of myself taken right after all of this had happened, I’m standing back in the sanctity of my grandmother’s place, on one of those desert California lawns of gravel rocks with two thorny roses behind me. I have long hair, very torn jeans and there’s something about my expression that astounds me – it’s the transition between innocence and experience with just a hint of the future burden of guilt and pain, a foreshadowing of what is to come. I realize now how lucky I was, I was a tourist in that world when so many have to live in it for months, years. It’s forever given me awareness and sensitivity towards the issue of homelessness. Awareness, I guess that’s what I’m trying to impart upon you with my facts, figures and, ultimately, my story. After all, that pale, skinny girl next to you asking for change, she used to be me.