Tag: being homeless

The stress and trauma of sleeping rough can be paused in a space with intentional warmth and thoughtfully placed rest areas. When I get to the Women’s Hearth in the mornings, I am greeted by the cozy front rooms, adorned with artwork, throw pillows, squashy armchairs and so many plants that I am often surprised that the air here is not crisp.

Transitions’ Women’s Hearth has been in Spokane since 1991. We are part of the downtown tapestry of resources for Spokane’s unhoused population.

I mentioned that on July 17, 2016, I prayed fervently to be released from years of demeaning homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area. I also reported that ten days later, on July 27, 2016, I stepped off a bus in Moscow, Idaho, and have been inside ever since. So how did this remarkable change of circumstance come to pass?

I often compared homelessness to a turnstile at a BART station. I was stuck in the turnstile, as its wheels rolled me rapidly around and around. Eventually, I would be spewed out of the turnstile, on one side of the other: either inside or out.

It was often assumed that people who lived inside had a lot to teach those of us who were outside. It was rarely supposed that we who lived outside had a lot to teach people who never had done so.

I consider myself to be in the ideal position to express what homelessness is actually like. That is, from the perspective of those of us who have lived it.