Start with Compassion

The unique Little Free Libraries around Seattle, including the one pictured here, are wonderful community assets. In a Little Free Library near my home I found, read, and returned a gorgeous hand-made journal intentionally left there by an older woman who is homeless. She considers these journals to be her published memoirs. I thank her for sharing her artistic and writerly talents, as well as her astute insights into the “homelessness industrial complex” of Seattle. Reading her journal provided me with a window into her world.

I admire the work of Seattle architect Rex Holbein, his daughter Jenn LaFreniere, and other people at the Seattle non-profit Facing Homelessness who help match homeless people, including homeless mothers with small children, with homeowners who have built backyard accessory dwellings for them. Called the “Block Project,” it has the motto “Yes, in my backyard,” as opposed to the usual “not in my backyard” NIMBY-ism. It requires the buy-in of people in the neighborhood, or at least the city block, where a formerly homeless person will live. Their aim is to have a homeless person or family supported by an entire community, recognizing that homelessness is not just “houselessness” as many advocates now claim. Homelessness is about the lack of interpersonal affiliations, connections, and supports that make a house a home. Although this is not something I can see myself doing anytime soon, I like that the Block Project and Facing Homelessness exist in my city. It gives me hope that we can become better versions of ourselves, a better version of our city.

In this I am reminded of the words of Rev. Craig Rennebohm, who began a still-thriving street-based mental health outreach program for homeless people in Seattle. I had the pleasure of interviewing him for the oral history component of my Skid Road project in February 2016. He said, “I realized that if we can’t bring some level of peace to our neighbors on the streets, in our communities, there’s no hope for us being a more peaceable presence in the world. We need to learn how to be peaceable and healing at the most fundamental levels of our common life–as families, as neighbors, as cities and towns–communities.”

Here’s to a peaceable and healing and compassionate year ahead.