“Blowing in the Seattle Winds”; Reflection from our Communications Manager Clàudia, on her first outreach trip with Debbie Monda
“I am just letting you know, what you will see here today will change you. It will probably overwhelm you, and ultimately change you”, said Debbie as we were pulling into a little bike lane that follows the I-90 bridge right next to Beacon Hill. We had already talked on the phone a couple of times before, and she said the same thing; I knew what she was talking about, I have been working in this field for over three years now, and I still feel shocked and sadness when I witness someone in crisis and how little support there is for them.;
Some experiences can only be described in pieces of songs that touch our souls, such as Bob Dylan’s 1963 “Blowing in the wind”. in my humble opinion, one of the best Folk- Blues songs that have been written. Written in times of protest, its a universal message of peace & dignity has appealed to so many across the world that it has been translated into 30 languages, I learned it in Catalan before I even understood where the US was on the map, or what a country was in the first place. And it accompanies this story as if it was composed to be its soundtrack. If you can, I encourage you to pull this song up and listen to it while you read this story.
It was a cold January day, as Debbie and I started walking underneath the I-90 bridge, right next to the Beacon Hill neighborhood. This was my first neighborhood in Seattle when I first moved here as a young adult. I remember passing by this place on a daily basis in my rusty Honda CRV from work to school, school to concerts, to uncertain days of protests in Capitol Hill. This place would always catch my eye, the well-carved scale on the mud at the encampment site, where tents and tarps stood erected against the rain, resilient, strong. I myself had a good friend who had lived in a similar situation not that long ago, and every time I pass that area, I think of them, and how they were able to sleep in those cold, windy conditions.
I heard of Debbie and Damian (her husband) when I started working at Facing Homelessness. The Seattle Times followed them for a year in their efforts to bring company and resources for our neighbors who are living outside. I feel lucky that I had such great ambassadors on my first outreach trip to witness and meet the folks who experience the worst of this humanitarian crisis here in Washington State, so close to home as we hear about shellings in Ukraine and genocide in China, and overall human beings living in an ever-changing world of climate change.
Debbie used a hiking pole to find balance, and I scrambled after her trying not to slip and fall as we made our way to visit her friends, a couple who have been together for the past ten years, let’s call them A and B. When we arrived, they greeted us with a hug. She was feeding their cats while he was cooking breakfast on a beautifully made fire that warmed our hands. Even though we were covered by tarps, every time we spoke our breaths became mist. The roaring sound of the highway next to us was so loud, that we basically had to yell to have a conversation. Debbie has known them for many years now; she made her a delicious home-made cheesecake for her belated birthday, and she carefully wrapped it to eat it later, as we chatted about their lives, they told me how they were made houseless; One went through a very difficult divorce, the other one got out of a complicated relationship. They both met at the former Jungle, and after the sweepings moved in together in this newer area.
They are both fighting very hard to get into housing, and make daily trips to food banks as well as keep in touch with case managers. They work hard at building and living their resilient life, as they take care of each other and also try to stay alive during very scary moments, such as an occasion of someone breaking into their tent in the middle of the night, where someone broke in their home.
On our last stop in Georgetown, we met Christy, is a very sweet woman who told me how she is already working on a housing voucher with her housing case manager, how she is excited, but also knows how these things take a long time. In the meanwhile, she lives in a tent alongside her friends, and they take care of each other. But it is very dangerous to be outside; Some months ago there was a homicide in the building right next to them... And then after we left, that night around 12 am, someone shot her two good friends in their car and killed them. It was just a few feet away from them, they heard everything. You can hear Christy and Debbie talking about it in a short interview on Channel 13 from last night; I am meeting Christy again on Monday to see how she is doing. But this very last piece of Dylan’s song, is for all of us to ask ourselves; Haven’t too many people already died? To remember the two human beings whose lives were taken, and to honor their existence.
Are you listening to that Bob Dylan song? Have you reached the line “Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows That too many people have died?” On DATE at TIME, two men were murdered at this encampment, shot through the windshield of their car while they were warming up from the cold. When Debbie said this experience might overwhelm me, she was right. In further reflection,What I truly feared, was to meet people that later would not be there anymore. Having worked in this field since the beginning of the pandemic, Ihave already met tooyoung people who are no longer with us.
These folks were lost too soon and without fairness or justice. While their circumstances were all different all of them were linked to the same underlying situation: the lack of accessibility to stable and safe housing, access to mental health and universal healthcare, lack of visibility in the system, and overall the very real dangers of exposure or random acts of violence that unfortunately accompany the experience of homelessness in this country. Follow me, as I continue going on outreach trips with Debbie and friends here at Facing Homelessness, and we slowly get to know our neighbors better.
