ROOFLess Radio Street-Writing Workshop in So-Called-Tacoma

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...

Jen

The first time my world fell apart was the most difficult one Because I learned that everything I was told by those who said they loved me…was a lie.  Lost everything except my kids because they were shunned, too. And the values I was taught were treated as flaws. Mistakes. Or worse.  Don’t teach me to be honest and then expect me to play along with a lie.  Don’t teach me empathy And then expect me to stay silent. When I see another’s pain: Don’t teach me to help others but then reprimand me for doing so.  Don’t teach me courage and then try to convince me to live based on fear.  I have every right to be angry because betrayal trauma has been a near constant in my life.  I have a hard time connecting  because I am always expecting to be kicked while I’m down. By the ones that I love…By the ones that I trust.  But there’s a twist to this story.  Because there is kindness everywhere.  And even though I sometimes feel like I was raised by monsters I understand that FEAR  is what makes a monster And it can happen to anyone.  But it can also be reversed.

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Donell Hawkins

My Friend got kild by INwood PD In my face

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Soup

Although currently housed I spend a lot of time on the street serving food to neighbors.  Cops will frequently come harass me about permits.  One time they dumped my pot of soup on the ground and said I would be arrested if I didn’t move all my stuff.  It took a while for me to want to go back out again.

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The Ripper

I'm homeless because of myself.  Didn’t want what I had.  And what I wanted didn’t want me.  I’m learning a different part way of life.  My eyes seeing the truth, the fake people.  Even the one’s who calls of friends and family won’t even offer a closet to sleep in. WOW!!  Been fortunate not to deal with police or sweeps, but lost a lot, just to those who needed it more than me

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Courtney N Love, Lived Experience Coalition, Tacoma, WA  ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE

2006 my mom & her cop boyfriend were arrested for SA’ing my little brother it knocked me on my ass.  My new husband wasn’t equipped to support me and instead chose emotional, psychological, financial & occasionally physical abuse.  We finally separated, but I had no family left and knew it was just a matter of time before I was unhoused.  2021, I was evicted, landed in a small trailer on a friends property - no running water, no heat, toting my water and waste, thankful that I wasn’t susceptible to the risks of the streets.  Through the remnants of my social connections and *political engagement, I came in contact with the Lived Experience Coalition, a for-us, by-us, Black, Brown & Indigenous led org that welcomed me, lifted me up, validated my advocacy-because the “We is always stronger that the “me”

Ubuntu -I am, because We are.

*Founder was engaging in political space that I was barely holding onto

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Anonymous

It started with a bullshit parking ticket against a single mama tryin’ to keep it together transmitted through time & hatred into an arrest warrant the PoLice said they had to execute during a traffic stop.  For lack of a ? they took her away in handcuffs; she cried the whole time. I told the cop she’d been traumatized & is autistic as if he would care. He put her in the back & I followed to the station on a Sunday rural time moves slow when the want.  Her continued screaming forced them at least to get a woman to search her but in her rage she broke their fingerprint machine the way she did every laptop her energy too much for stupid machines.

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Darren

The worst day was when I was forced out of where I had been staying and had to leave my daughters with my parents.  I couldn’t afford rent anymore/hadn’t recovered since COVID * divorce and couldn’t stomach forcing my girls to live in a car.

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Patrick

I was born in a crack house to be blunt, eviction was as familiar as poverty and uncertainty.  Chaos was normality and brokenness? was a family member.  I love that I was humbled before I had the chance to be ungrateful.  I love God and how he always make a way.  I'm still here and breathing.  For that money would have gotten in the way of me realizing my need For him there for a reason and if you are breathing …so are you.

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Anonymous

I will never forget the time when I was living w/rats and bed bugs on top of that facing eviction called no fault eviction. at any rate I was abt to be displaced and homeless.

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