The Sacred Land | Common Ground forum on Oct. 18, 2015, brought together leaders in the faith community and the nonprofit affordable housing community from King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. Continue reading
The Moth
“It is brilliant and quietly addictive” – The London Guardian
“New York’s hottest and hippest literary ticket” – The Wall Street Journal
The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. It is a celebration of both the raconteur, who breathes fire into true tales of ordinary life, and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. At the center of each performance is, of course, the story – and The Moth’s directors work with each storyteller to find, shape and present it. Continue reading
Talking Homelessness with Center for Women and Democracy, Sept. 17
We were honored to present at the “Food for Thought” event on homelessness in Seattle, for the Center for Women and Democracy, Sept. 17 at the Women’s University Club. Continue reading
Invisible Families — Five Years After the Landmark Seattle Times Series on Family Homelessness
By Catherine Hinrichsen, project manager, Seattle University Project on Family Homelessness
The crashing ocean waves were the score to my quest on a Saturday night five years ago, at a quiet seaside housing development on the Washington coast. I excused myself from our little multi-family gathering around 10 p.m. to go stake out the central office, in search of an Internet connection. Though it was after hours and the building was closed, the wifi was still on. I lugged my heavy, ancient laptop to a pillar with a ledge and propped it up, typing into the search bar “www.seattletimes.com”… Would it be there? And what would it say? Continue reading
Forging New Partnerships in Family Homelessness and Health
By Hannah Hunthausen, Program Coordinator, Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry
Imagine living and sleeping day after day in your car in 90 degree heat, shuttling your daughter to and from work and trying to get yourself to dialysis three times per week. This is the situation Lana and her 23-year-old daughter Rachel found themselves in this summer.[1] Mother and daughter were evicted from their two-bedroom apartment in Renton last year when Lana’s kidneys failed and she could no longer work to keep up on rent. Like many families, they opted to hold on to their vehicle and the little bit of security and freedom it still offers them; they can keep their stuff relatively safe, and get to appointments and work more easily than if they were living at a shelter. Lana and Rachel are just one of several families and individuals profiled in Real Change
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Wired for Empathy: Why We Can’t Resist Good Narrative
Editor’s note: This is re-posted from Firesteel and is the first installment of a three-part series on storytelling, empathy, and advocacy.
Written by Perry Firth, project coordinator, Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness and school psychology graduate student
I was mesmerized by Jack London’s Alaska: beautiful, severe, raw.
A skinny second grader belly down on the carpet of my bedroom floor, I was reading long after my parents had turned off my light.
But I had no choice! London’s writing had transported me to another world, free of the mundane realities that plague children, like a set bedtime and parents.
In this new world I empathized with London’s protagonist, a sled dog named Buck in Call of the Wild.
What is so powerful about this memory in hindsight is not that it marked the first time I fell in love with independent reading, but that it is a collective experience. Absolute absorption in a compelling story is something that almost all people can relate to; it is universal.
This absorption in another’s world happens, to varying degrees of intensity, every time we hear, read (or watch) a good story.
So here’s what fascinates me: Why does this happen? What is so important—evolutionarily—about stories that they command our attention in a way few things can? And are there stories that impact us more than others? Why does this occur? And, to be addressed a little later in this series, what does the hardwired human preference for stories mean for social justice advocates?
Portraits of Homelessness
Sharing the Depth of the Human Experience: “Portraits of Homelessness” at the 2015 Global Street Paper Summit
By Lindsey Habenicht, Project Assistant, Seattle University Project on Family Homelessness
Editor’s Note: Seattle University hosted the International Network of Street Papers (INSP) Global Street Paper Summit June 24-26, 2015, which welcomed more than 120 journalists from street papers in 22 countries, including Seattle’s Real Change. Our assistant, Lindsey Habenicht (above), is spending the summer as an intern for one of those papers, Street Sense of Washington, D.C. Before she left Seattle, Lindsey attended the Summit as a street paper communicator and volunteer blogger. This is an adapted version of Lindsey’s post for the Summit.
The narrative of what homelessness is and is not is often uninformed, uneducated, and even unknown completely. While many are aware of the issue of homelessness, they remain unaware of the person: the veteran, the child, the musician, the artist, the entrepreneur, and the like.
“Why is that?” asked Rex Hohlbein of Facing Homelessness. “How could [we] be so disconnected from the simple and obvious fact that homelessness involves real people with real suffering?”
Keynote speaker Rex Holbein started the Facebook page “Homeless in Seattle”’ in March of 2011 to share something beautiful about each person living on the street. Photo courtesy of facinghomelessness.org
Rex was the keynote speaker at the Global Street Paper Summit’s opening night event, “Portraits of Homelessness,” June 24, which told stories through more than 100 works of visual art, films and audio recordings. Continue reading
Trauma-Informed Care, StoryCorps, and Host Homes for Youth: Some Highlights From WLIHA’s Conference on Ending Homelessness
Written by Perry Firth, project coordinator, Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness and school psychology graduate student
Caption: This image captures just how many people attended WLIHA’s Conference on Ending Homelessness. As you can see, we were a big crowd! Image from WLIHA.
This year I had the pleasure of attending the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance’s Conference on Ending Homelessness in Tacoma, May 13-14. I was there with over 800 people (the largest turnout yet), all devoted to making homelessness rare, brief and one time.
There were many highlights, including Firesteel’s presentation on StoryCorps and strategic communications, the Project on Family Homelessness’s “Dessert Dash” and StoryCorps workshop, and the sessions on host homes for homeless youth and trauma-informed care.
Firesteel shows how StoryCorps can be a valuable communication tool
I loved Firesteel’s presentation on StoryCorps and strategic communications. As part of the Project on Family Homelessness, I have had the honor of helping the StoryCorps effort reach its full potential. As the Firesteel team and Joaquin of WLIHA discussed StoryCorps’ many uses and the role of strategic communications in ending homelessness, I was reminded of how many lives this project has touched.
This was further emphasized to me when our own team hosted a workshop and “Dessert Dash” with Sherry and Franklin Gilliard—a family whose courage in the face of home loss and homelessness was profiled on NPR’s Friday StoryCorps segment this past November. Continue reading
Can Social Media End Homelessness? A Look at New Research
By Lindsey Habenicht
Note: Please welcome to our team Lindsey Habenicht, a Seattle University strategic communications junior. Lindsey just got back from a highly regarded student research conference, where she shared a unique perspective on homelessness. Here’s her report.
“3,772.” I paused and watched people exchange confused glances.
“3,772,” I continued, “That’s how many men, women, and children were without shelter during King County, Washington’s three-hour street count. That number is an increase of 21 percent over those found without shelter last year, yet it is still assumed to be an undercount.” I paused again — this time to see looks of disbelief.
“Are you surprised?” 30 heads nodded yes. “Case-in-point, popular media suffers a severe void when it comes to sharing stories of homelessness.”
This is how I started my presentation at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, April 16-18 at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Wash. I had been invited to share my research as one of 3,000 students at the conference. Continue reading
Real Change Goes Digital — No Cash, No Problem
By Paige McAdam
Note: We’re pleased to welcome to our team Paige McAdam, a Seattle University political science major. Because Paige has a special connection to Real Change, we asked her to attend the April 16 launch of the new smartphone app that customers can use to buy their copies of Real Change. Here’s her report.
The first time I bought an issue of Real Change News was in 2012. The concept of providing a source of income for those experiencing homelessness — while also creating content based around economic justice issues — immediately dazzled me. I became a contributing writer a few weeks later, and have been an avid reader of the paper ever since. Today, Real Change made history, entering what founder Tim Harris calls “Real Change 2.0.”
projectonfamilyhomelessness.org 