Real Change News | Where to look?

July 29, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 34

Letters to the Editor

Where to look?

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Dear Real Change:

Thank you so much for Being There and doing what you do! I have lived in subsidized housing for 20 years now after being homeless in Seattle for a year in the ’80s. I feel so grateful!

Seattle is really on overload with need from Disabled folks. I moved to a much smaller town and got housing pretty easy compared to what I was looking at in Seattle. Over a two year wait (in the ’80s) and you can’t pick where you go — pretty scary for a single female.

I got this idea that I wanted to share — with whom I’m not really sure — but it’s that there needs to be a subsidized housing web site for western Washington with all the buildings, etc., in all the towns, for social workers to access as well as folks at the library and all the in-betweens. Managers could post openings, waiting list lengths etc. as they come up monthly.

Is there such a site, or would it be possible for some agency or persons to do it? I think it might really help some folks get on with their lives. Several years is too long to wait for a place to live. You sink too low and it takes years to come back up; along the way a lot of money was spent on me for hospital psych wards because I could not deal with being homeless. Who can!

Kristi Merlino
Bainbridge Island

I don’t believe any such web site exists, Kristi. Anyone looking for help in Washington state can call 2-1-1 and get some basic information about resources in your community, or you can visit the 2-1-1 web site at www.resourcehouse.com. —ed.

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