Life on the streets: ‘It was just a big tsunami that hit me’

It’s easy to make statements and critiques of the homeless in Seattle. There’s plenty of people experiencing homelessness around town, and plenty of signs of the crisis.

KIRO Radio’s Don O’Neill knows this. He reports that his local QFC near Queen Anne was forced to close off its bathroom after a series of needles, blood, and other incidents caused hazards for customers and employees. He also reports that the grocery store has experienced a rise in shoplifting ever since a city-sponsored tent city was established nearby. He also suspects that people use their food stamps to buy lotto tickets, from what he’s observed.

Photo essay: Homeless people living on the streets of Seattle

“Are people during the day actually out looking for work? Because it looked to me like there are a lot of people (in the tent city) just hanging out,” Don said. “I even saw a guy at the store and I told him I’d pay him $20 an hour to chop wood. Nobody seemed interested in that.”

But Nicole is interested and she told Don as much. She lives in the city-run Tent City 5 in the Interbay area bordering Don’s neighborhood. While Don’s experience may be anecdotal, Nicole’s is first hand.

Nicole has lived in the tent city for the past two-and-a-half months. She was elected manager in its democratic organization. But she has been on the streets of Seattle for three years.

“It was just a big tsunami that hit me,” Nicole told Don. “My mother passed away while I was in school. Then the great recession; job loss; inability to find sustainable work. My apartment was broken into and a lot of valuables were stolen, including my laptop which is a tool. My car was breaking down and I was losing everything. It seemed like everybody was kicking me on my way down. I pretty much adapted to the situation and always tried to make the best of it.”

That string of events led Nicole to the streets.

“I’ve been out on my own, living out of a backpack with a tarp and a sleeping bag,” she said. “It’s really hard to find the stability that you need and try to build the life that you once had.”

Related: Nearly 400 people estimated to be camping in Seattle greenbelt

Nicole said she never established a camp site, as many Seattleites have witnessed throughout town. She just found different places to sleep for the night on the street. Now she has a stable situation where she and her fiancee can work toward a life off the streets. That’s made possible by the tent city and Nicole wants her Queen Anne neighbors to know that. She also wants them to know the reality of the tent city, not the stories they may hear about troublesome RVs, or drugs for example.

“We love to have visitors, and we like to show people around … and yes, there are a lot of issues that people are struggling to overcome. We have severe disabilities and trauma,” she said. “I see a lot of people healing in this setting. They get to become part of a function again. It may take some people a while, but people are improving.”

“There are a lot of elderly homeless right now. There are people in their 50s and their 60s (too), and it’s really hard to see them suffering,” Nicole noted. “They can’t find work, and if they do look, it’s hard because they don’t get the calls back. They are too young to be retired.”

As for the stories people hear, such as the ones Don talked about, Nicole said, “That doesn’t speak to my behavior or any of the behavior I’ve experienced with any of our campers. I know heroin is a national issue. And all the grocery stores have issues with restrooms. As far as that being at Tent City 5, that is hard to say, because we have very strict sobriety rules.”

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