PLEASE MEET JASON:
An area in Woodland Park stretching from the bocce ball courts south has a great many tents with folks living homeless. Safely speaking there are 100 people living there, some say as many as 200. Word is spreading fast that a city sWEEP is imminent.
If you have ever been present when a sweep is taking place you know the horror of it. It’s nothing like the intellectual policy discussions that take place in government offices, coffee shops and dinner tables by the most of us. Rather, it is a gut wrenching experience of tears felt by the few. Trauma is layered upon trauma as folks have minutes to pack everything up and leave. Those away, out doing errands or working a job, come back to their homes finding everything gone. It is horrible.
It is also easy to see why sweeps happen. People want their parks back for a long list of valid reasons. I remember as a young boy going many times to Woodland Park with my dad around 4:00 AM with flashlights to catch earthworms on our way to go fishing in Puget Sound. I love those memories.
The problem is that we have a polarized environment of SWEEPS vs. NO SWEEPS. Sadly, all of this back&forth energy is addressing the symptom not the cause. It gets us nowhere. Both sides feel they are right because they are right, nobody is wrong here.
What is wrong is the failed system that allows so many to suffer without basic needs being met. The conversation shouldn’t be about sweeps, it should be about why do we have homelessness in the first place and what are we going to do about it?
When asking, “What are we going to do about it?”, it is a question for our highest and best self. A place of acknowledging that every single person is deserving of our love and attention. All solutions must begin by holding true to this belief.
Please meet Jason. He’s 23 years old. He grew up in Snohomish. For the last year he’s been living in a tent at Woodland Park. He says he’s trying to figure his life out, “I’ve not given a f*** for so long and now that I want to, I have to learn how.”
Jason, a soft-spoken man, has already at his young age seen more pain than I have in all the extra 40 years I’ve lived. When he was 18 his older brother died in his arms. It was heart-breaking life shattering. “My brother was my dude. He picked me up from school, taught me how to work on cars and talk to girls.”
Jason then rapped a song to me about his brother dying, his struggle with it all, the complex difficulties of his family, his parents and others not seeing him, life at Green Lake being homeless, and on and on. I could feel myself beginning to tear up with how instantly vulnerable and beautiful he was in that moment. When he finished and I thanked him for sharing he said, “I don’t have anybody I can talk to about stuff, when I mention my brother dying people go quiet, they don’t know what to say, it gets uncomfortable.”
I asked what he wants to do when he figures it all out. He said, “I want to help people. I want to be a drug-rehab therapist. But yeah, I gotta figure myself out first. You can lose yourself out here.”
Like many, Jason is worried about the impending sweep. It's one more thing. When asked what he needed, he replied, “I could really use some socks and good sturdy size 14 boots.”
If you can be of help to Jason please let us know in the comments below and then ship to: Facing Homelessness ℅ Jason - 4001 9th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105. A heartfelt THANKS in advance!!!
Woodland Park | Rex
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