I got an email last week from a listener named Ben. I’m going to let him speak for himself.
“I am currently homeless because I’m underemployed and could not keep up with bills. I live in my Jeep with my dog and am not an addict of any kind, and continue to work. I really dislike that I’m struggling to find housing, and these people that have taken everything from everyone are given more. The true face of homelessness in Washington is not the street dwellers but the cashiers and waiters and everyone else that’s working but just can’t get that leg up. I have a college degree. I’ve owned a retail business in the Northgate Mall. I owned a home before divorce. It only took six months of no income to completely drown me, and now I’m a statistic. But since I’m responsible and able to work and function in society, THERE IS NO HELP FOR ME.”
Ben is living in his Jeep rather than a Seattle encampment. He doesn’t want to be around the drug use, the chaos, the danger. He’s trying to hold his life together, not watch it come apart around him…