Why She’d Rather Face Seattle’s Rain Than Be Separated From the Man She Loves
It had been raining for days when we met Melissa in Seattle. Temperatures were dropping, winter was on its way, and she and her partner were living in a tent, where they’d been for going on seven or eight months.
“I want off these streets,” she told us. “It’s getting crazy.”
Shelter beds had been checked twice that day. But for Melissa, a bed that means leaving her partner behind isn’t really an option.
“I’m not separating from him. I refuse,” she said. “I love him. He loves me. We have each other’s back. Why should we have to separate?”
A Choice No One Should Have to Make
Many shelters don’t accept couples, which leaves people like Melissa with an impossible choice: a warm bed alone, or the cold together. Melissa says Seattle’s tiny home villages don’t have room for couples either.
It’s the same problem that pushed her out of New York City. “They separate families. They separate couples,” she said. So, she moved across the country to be with her partner, who is from Seattle. “At least here, I have a chance to be with my man, finally.”
The person who keeps you warm at night, watches your belongings, and has your back when things get dangerous is more than company. On the streets, that bond is survival.
Born Into Homelessness
Melissa is 42 years old. She has been homeless for 32 of those years.
“I was born into this. I wasn’t given an option,” she said. She grew up in a family struggling with addiction and has been in and out of the streets since she was a child, from Tompkins Square Park to the 1988 riot in New York City. “I was homeless then, homeless now.”
“Never had a chance,” she said. “Was never given a proper chance.”
Starting Over, Again and Again
In the past four months alone, Melissa and her partner have been forced to move three times. She says Seattle’s sweeps are worse than the cleanups she knew in New York. People are given a deadline to clear out, and whatever remains is thrown away. Bulldozers tear down what’s left.
“Then we have to start all over again,” she said.
Sweeps don’t end homelessness. They move it somewhere else, and every time, people lose tents, blankets, documents, and the fragile stability they’ve managed to build. When we asked whether she’d ever lost something important in a sweep, Melissa’s answer was striking.
“The most important thing is myself. I have not lost my humanity. I have not lost me.”
‘We’re Human Beings Just Like You’
Melissa has a message for people who have never experienced homelessness: don’t judge what you don’t understand.
“Everybody’s a paycheck away from being homeless,” she said. “We’re all human beings. We all just wanna live. People forgot humans just wanna live. We just don’t have the means to do so.”
She asks for something simple. “When you see us, you don’t have to roll your eyes. You don’t have to make us feel like we’re nothing. Instead of pushing us away, help.”
What Melissa Wants
“I want a place with heat,” Melissa said. “I want a normal home.”
That’s not too much to ask. Housing that keeps couples together, an end to sweeps that destroy what little people have, and a real commitment to affordable housing would give Melissa and people like her a real way off the streets.
If Melissa’s story moved you, share it. Contact your local legislators and tell them sweeps are not the answer. People need real solutions and real homes. To learn more about sweeps in Seattle and beyond, watch our full documentary, Where Do They Go? The Painful Reality of Seattle’s RV Homeless Sweeps.
