ROOFLess Radio Street-Writing Workshop at Tent City 3 in So-Called-Seattle

Tent City 3 in Seattle, Washington

RoofLESS radio Street Writing Workshops are offered by fellow houseless/formerly houseless povertyskolaz at POOR Magazine in schools, jail cells, shelter beds and wherever us poor peoples are... Watch the RoofLESS radio video reports on PoorNewsNetwork

Cidnee  

1. When CPS took Isaaiah and Abraham after fighting to keep us together

2. When my mother helped auction of Matthew and Mary to the highest bidder

3. How my mother FINALLY got rid of Abraham and is currently using his social security number and documents so she can get 3 bedroom here in Seattle (She has a 3 bedrooms in Texas) while Im homeless (6 months TX, 6  months Seattle) and Abraham is in a group home in Houston.

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Anitra Freeman

I was about 19 when Mom woke me up in the middle of one night, to tell me, very seriously and urgently, how to tie the sheets together in a rope to lower the younger kids, then myself, out the window.  Then run to the neighbor’s house.  And call the police.  If Daddy killed her.

Daddy never killed her.  Or even hit her.  Or hit any of us.  But mom had bipolar disorder, and got a lot of weird ideas sometimes.  One night she was throwing coffee cups at the walls because demons were coming through to kill her.

That wasn’t when we became houseless.  But Mom’s problems, and Dad’s problems, meant we were always “housing insecure”, moved a lot and because we moved a lot, Mom + Dad’s problems, and mine, didn’t get diagnosed + addressed.

Poverty is a whole web of things, most woven out of “nobody paying attention.”  The more problems you have, the farther you sink out of sight.

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Robert Coleman

A few days ago, I spent about a whole day running around while sick just trying to get my prescription for my mental wellbeing.

Hi my name is Robert and I am a Homeless man from a lot of different places.  Most recently 

I’ve been in Washington to be with my Fiance.  I personally Have been Homeless for most of my adult life.

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Modus

One day during my first week outside I was waking up in a park and hearing police yelling at me to find somewhere else to be.  Not knowing where best to go, I moved into a green belt with my tarp and tent.  I was lucky, I thought, I had a storage unit I could keep things for a while.  I set up a spot on a hillside, lots of wind but it was warm enough, glad to have met the challenge of the day.

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Joe Molloy

I’m not sure how many days.  I started to keep track, initially.  But then it felt like one of those scenes in a prison movie.  Marking hashes on a wall.  In the movie, they speed up.  Cut To - months, years later.  There’s no cut.  Some of these days just drag without no plot.  It’s a countdown.  They know how long they’ll be there.  Counting up.  Counting Down.  I was just counting.  I came into this “radicalized”.  Helping, working, whatever I could do inside the “industry” of Homeless services.  I heard one of them say once - “I’m ready to Hire someone, but Not someone too “Radicalized”.  I said - I never met anyone like that.  I’ve only met folks trying to survive.  And folks that have learned the Truth.  No point in counting.  It’s not going anywhere.

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SIPILIANO PETERS

HOMELESSNESS: I’M IN AND OUT OF HOMELESSNESS.

DIVORCE:  I LEFT MY WIFE AND END-UP HOMELESS AND STAYED IN VARIOUS SHELTERS

I WAS IN AND OUT OF HOMELESS CAUSE OF PERSONAL PROBLEMS 

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Dut? 2025 MS

Aug 25th 2023 was going to my worst and my best day all in one.  Going thru some stuff w/kids also it started 2 yrs Prior the day in speaking.  By the end of 8/25/2023 i realized i would have given up and leave Minnesota.  In a fleeing moment i knew in my heart it’s not safe here in MN>  so i had so much going good and left/lost all to never return to MN.  Middle brother/both both my kids (daughter + son) all want me dead or maybe worse.  Came to Seattle to relocate and start Fresh.

Watching over my young siblings and baby brother 9-11 hours a day in the Safeway Cafe while our mom worked.   We weren’t allowed to stay at the shelter alone.  Knowing that w/o this shelter, we would freeze to Death in just a few hours.  Having to accept unacceptable shelter, and to know mom was doing unacceptable things to get us that shelter.  Having to help.  I was most thankful for having my cats back at the end of everything.

I still wonder if it shortened their lives by years, after saying goodbye to them both.

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K

I don’t have words for my give back. They’re lodged in my throat and I can’t see through the tears in my eyes. I can barely Breathe but I need to impart the fear and hope and poison that’s been churning in my body for months.  You have been hurt longer, and in different ways, but I feel safe and with family after your talk.

Thank you, keep each other safe.

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ANONYMOUS

I’ve been lucky to stay off the streets, only brushing up against the edge of the knife, kept warm & dry by friends and the generosity of strangers.  But since moving here the trauma has accumulated anyway, though ?-making friends with a lady who lived off Pac Ave with her brothers, finding out she passed away murdered by cold or overdose a few month after her brother, from hearsay- where’s her memorial?  How can we mourn when life is devalued live this. Fuck the city for sweeping and sweeping and the store avengers who torture those who merely ask to sit outside.

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Ellen Goetch

It’s incredible to me how easily we as human beings forget that we are all in the same  boat as inhabitants of this earth and members of the human race.  The biggest differences that set us truly apart are nothing more than the ? trappings of wealth of the lack thereof, the backpack, which used to be the symbol of scholarship, self-betterment, and learning has now become a symbol of poverty and homeless and/or being “other”.  Every time I am in public in a mixed group of homeless and housed peoples, I became acutely aware of all the eyes scrutinizing ?  this essential luggage on my back that hold my few meager belongings that are important enough and sacred enough to be carried with me at all times.  There are so many times during any given day that I feel like I am some attraction in a zoo or circus show due to something as simple as having the convenience of carrying my home on my back.  My backpack is not the only homeless identifying characteristic though…another more embarrassing and shameful marker of my homelessness that I am confronted with multiple times a day is the smell of campfire on my clothing and self.  While I am with others who live outdoors and use campfire to keep warm I don’t recognize my “otherness”, however once I am surrounded by primarily housed folks, I can smell the musky,  sour smoke in my hair and clothes and feel the ? shame of my smell.

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