Margie Quinn, Social Justice Intern

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with a group of eighth graders from TOPS Middle School, a Seattle alternative public school. The students stopped by the office as part of a three-day program called Planting the Seeds where they visit different service organizations in the Seattle area. We spent an hour discussing the mission of the Housing Alliance and the different causes of homelessness. During the advocacy training session, I asked the group a question that I think we all find ourselves coming back to when we consider different social issues.

“What does it have to do with me?”

After I asked them to meditate on this question for a few moments, I led them through a series of statistics about student homelessness in Seattle public schools as well as the state. The students were shocked. They couldn’t believe there were 162 homeless eighth graders in 2013 in the Seattle Public Schools system or that over 30,000 students in our state were homeless last year. “But, who are they?” they wondered. “I’ve never seen them in school!” they told me. “I would know if I saw a homeless student at school!”

TOPS school 8th graders visited us as part of a three-day learning experience on homelessness.

Would you, though? Their insistence that they have never seen a homeless student left me feeling bewildered. So I told them Joy’s story.

I met Joy at Seattle University’s Poverty Immersion Workshop a few months ago. I was compelled by her comments during the group debrief and asked her if I could hear more about her story.

Joy spent the first year of nursing school homeless. She wrote a check for the application fee knowing that she didn’t actually have the money for it. As Joy says, “I dropped it in the mail, said a prayer and walked away.”

A few months later, Joy got the news that she would be attending nursing school that fall. “I was crying. I wrote a check I had no money for! They let me in! I was so excited.”

Joy spent many nights finishing papers in her car. The nearest coffee shop would close at 8:30pm, so Joy would stay in her car and continue typing away in order to use the free wi-fi. On top of that, Joy was a single mother. She did not want her son to see the inside of a shelter, yet she couldn’t afford the high cost of rent either. “When you’re poor, it’s a mindset,” Joy says. “You look at things differently. You think about it every single day.” Joy and her son spent many nights sleeping on the couches of friends and family while looking for affordable, more stable housing and continuing on with her education.

Despite the fatigue of being a full-time student, a full-time mother and experiencing homelessness, Joy persisted. “It’s been a transformation not only for school but for myself.” 

When the group of eighth graders asked me how to spot homeless students, I thought of Joy’s words. “These people look like you, they look like me, they are in our community…and some people are really good at hiding it. Others, not so much. They’re everywhere. You go to school with them. They’re your neighbor. A person doesn’t have to ‘look poor.’ It could be the person sitting next to you in class.”

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