By Khadija Diallo, Project Assistant, Seattle University Project on Family Homelessness

Just imagine: you are 25 years old, a mother of three from Somalia and you have lived in Washington for two years. You don’t speak English; you have no relatives in any surrounding area or knowledge of resources available to you. To top it all off, you’re no longer able to pay your rent bill, so you and your children end up homeless. What next?
What if you were a single father of two who became homeless, yet found shelter at Mary’s Place, but are an undocumented immigrant. What rights do you have? Can you be arrested at the shelter?
With a new administration underway and impending immigration sweeps nationwide, it’s important for immigrants and refugees to know their rights. It’s also important for families experiencing housing instability to know what resources are available to them.