Student Project Assistant, Summer 2017 through 2017-18 school year
Tess Riski is a senior at Seattle University majoring in journalism and humanities for teaching. She has extensive writing and reporting experience, and a passion for issues pertaining to homelessness, housing and education.
For the last year, Tess worked as the news editor of Seattle University’s campus newspaper, the Spectator. She will continue for the 2017-18 academic year as the news and investigative editor, a new position she created out of a desire for more investigative opportunities at the paper.
This summer, Tess is working as the news intern at The Stranger, where she writes daily news posts while working on long-term feature and profile stories.
In addition to the Spectator and The Stranger, Tess just completed a six-month editorial internship at Crosscut, where she covered a variety of issues such as local politics, homelessness and housing. Her favorite story for Crosscut is a lengthy feature about the Aurora Commons, a low-barrier day shelter near the intersection of Aurora Avenue and 90th Street. For this story, Tess interviewed dozens of women who visit the shelter, as well as representatives from the Seattle Police Department and King County Public Health, to illustrate the resounding need for low-barrier spaces throughout Seattle.
It was during her time reporting on the Aurora Commons that Tess felt limited in her ability to enact change from her role as a reporter. Because of this limitation, Tess sought further opportunities to be an advocate in a more direct manner. From her perspective, our project seemed like an ideal fit, and Tess says she is more than eager to bring her passion for writing and advocacy work into the project.
In fall 2017, Tess will be studying abroad in Northern Thailand, but she will return to her position as project assistant in January.
Update: Tess graduated in June 2018 and left Seattle to attend graduate school at the Columbia School of Journalism.
projectonfamilyhomelessness.org 