Community rallies around ‘Ballard’s son’ to prevent eviction

When a Ballard landlord told a developmentally disabled man he had to be out of his apartment within a month’s time, Ballard rose up. Why? Because everybody loves Joel Romeo.

“It feels like he has adopted people as his family, and people have done the same with him,” said Ballard’s Max Wallace, noting that many locals have come to call Romeo “Ballard’s son.”

Romeo has lived in Ballard for 20 years. He doesn’t speak, yet finds small ways of communicating — drawing, writing. And it hasn’t kept him from becoming well-loved in the neighborhood, as well as somewhat of a Ballard icon. Locals even produced a small documentary on his unique place in the community.

“He’s largely autonomous and independent,” Wallace said. “But he’s had a lot of advocates over the years. He doesn’t have a voice. He needs us to be his voice for him.”

“He has traits of autism,” he said. “He may be partially deaf, too … I think that’s why he loves loud music. He writes and reads on a very limited basis … he writes in small sentences, like at an elementary school level. He pieces together American sign language, and drawing and writing.”

Now Romeo faces eviction. His landlord has cited that he is a hoarder. But despite his friends helping him clean up his home, the landlord still wants him out.

A part of Ballard

Wallace — a local DJ who works at a Ballard record store — came to know Romeo over the years. Romeo commonly comes into the record store where Wallace works and they spend time together. Romeo likes rock music.

“Punk rock. Heavy metal. Anything loud with electric guitars,” Wallace said, noting that he takes Romeo to rock shows in the area.

“He’s at all the rock shows,” he said. “Sonic Boom (Records) will put on rock shows and he’ll be up front laughing and having an awesome time. You would think that someone with a bunch of disabilities would have a more negative attitude. But he has a great attitude.”

And Romeo is known as a local artist– he particularly focuses on feet. In fact, he has a collection of foot models he has cast himself.

“He loves artwork,” Wallace said. “He cast people’s feet. He has 100 different castings that he will paint and put shoes on and put the bottom part of the jeans on.”

His drawings are found around town as well — on the record boxes at the store, for example. One message that accompanies drawings is “Nobody loves Joel Romeo.”

But that currently doesn’t seem to be the case.

Ballard backs Joel

When the Ballard community found out about Romeo’s situation, they backed him up. According to Wallace, the landlord said Romeo was a hoarder. So friends gathered and they cleaned up his apartment. But the aim to evict Romeo still stands.

Wallace said that the landlord wants Romeo out of the apartment by the end of August. He speculates that it is a classic case of landlords wanting to make more money off of Seattle’s rising rents and land values — but that is only his speculation.

“The (non-profit organization that manages his housing) got a verbal eviction,” Wallace said. “They want him out by the end of the month.”

Now they have started a GoFundMe page to raise money for Romeo. They want to raise enough funds to fight to keep his apartment. But if that doesn’t work, they want to be able to cover moving and living costs for Romeo to stay in his Ballard neighborhood. Their goal is $12,000. In one day, they raised more than $8,000. The GoFundMe page is filled with comments from locals stating their experiences with, and love for Romeo.

“It will go to his housing — help him find a new space,” Wallace said. “It’s easy for people to assume that the state will magically take care of it. He doesn’t have a place to go.”

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