Homeless in Seattle, 1990

My family were nomads when I was young. We traveled to a few places. I use the word homeless more in the metaphorical sense during our stay in Seattle, though we did share many of the services made for the homeless or poverty stricken. This work is still in its draft stage and I will work on it soon. - Joel March 2009

My memories of living in Seattle are scattered but solid. Having left Tampa, Florida in search of work, my mother and her boyfriend brought my sister and me to this rainy city. I remember when we first arrived we stayed in a hotel converted into a temporary homeless shelter. I remember the hotel had a very old elevator that was worked with a lever rather than buttons. The thing I remember about the city itself, aside from there being rainy weeks, was how many hills we had to walk. I remember the hills, not from the simple act of taking strolls, but because we lacked a car and had to walk to most places.

I recall that the YWCA helped us a great deal during our stay in Seattle. They placed us in a one bedroom apartment, gave us monthly stipends to go to the supermarket to shop, and even paid for my sister and I to attend a good public school in the suburbs by giving us stipends for the taxi cab fare. Our first walk to the supermarket was quite a long one. I don’t recall exactly how long it took us to get there, but I remember I was tired from the walk. We bought our food and carried it home. My mother proceeded to cook and we ate well and were happy. The stipends were not enough for us to eat well for the entire month, so we visited various places that provided food for the homeless and even searched through the huge garbage tanks of a bakery my mother’s boyfriend used to work for to find some bread that was edible. Most of the time there was bread that was only a day old, so if we toasted it in a frying pan, it was edible. Since the bakery was located by the pier, my sister and I would take the stale bread and feed it to the seagulls by the pier or to pigeons in the park nearby. A specific memory I have of the pier was when there was a man reading a bible on the steps leading to the wooden deck afloat on the water. He proceeded to walk across and off the deck into the cold water. He swam to a wooden pole about 10 or 15 feet away and clung to it. I remember seeing a dolphin, though I can’t confirm what it was, I like to remember it that way. The ambulance soon arrived and divers got the man to pier. God knows what happened to him.

We stayed in Seattle for a couple months. Living in the one bedroom apartment, my sister and I attending a school where we were of the very few minority students. I remember shopping for clothes at garage sales. I had clothes that were older than me. I still remember the bell-bottoms jeans we got for a buck. I remember the school had the students assist the cafeteria staff. It was our class’s turn and I and another boy were chosen. I remember tater-tots and nothing else. Food was an important part of my life then. I remember one place use to place large amounts of yoghurt outside for the homeless to take. I had not eaten yoghurt before and took as much as I could carry to eat at home. I loved it, and whenever they handed out the yoghurt I took as much as I could carry. My mom, sister and mom’s boyfriend would not help me carry the yoghurt because they did not like it, so I had to carry what I could alone and leave the rest behind. Food on the street, left to rot because I was the only one who wanted it. My mom’s boyfriend did not find a regular job and worked as a drug dealer during our stay in Seattle. He was given a car by the dealer so he can drive to the suburbs for delivery. It was a tiny rust bucket that required a gallon of water in the truck to pour into it since it overheated easily. The car made transportation easier for us, especially the supermarket visits. Having to pay for parking by placing coins in the meter was a hassle. We would try to find old pennies, which we scraped at the edges and the meter would accept as 10 cent coins.

Unfortunately, one day while shopping, mom’s boyfriend was eating some slim-jims and forgot to mention to my mom to pay for them at the checkout. The supermarket security stopped us on the way out and, despite us being willing to pay for the slim-jims and admitting our mistake, banned us from ever going to the supermarket, which was the nearest one to us. The car was stolen, or rather, taken back by the dealer because my mom’s boyfriend left the job. The rest of the memories are vague. An old used TV for us to watch cartoons, a small park near our apartment where I fell in love with the flowing red hair of a mysterious woman, the taste of corn meal as my sister and I learned of corndogs, the feeling of futility as I tried to clean my clothes to make myself appear nicer for a girl I liked at school, and the Greyhound bus that we took to Minneapolis, Minnesota, ending our stay in the rainy city and continuing our road travel of homelessness. We were nomads trying to find our way home.