Feature
Life and death at downtown building
Woman found in her room after 7 weeks
Naasira Adeeba is a former tenant and employee of the YWCA, where residents say too many women are dying in their units, where their bodies lie undiscovered.
The women who knew India Valdez say she was the mother they never had.
Most days she sat in a chair in the entryway of downtown Seattle’s old YWCA building at Fifth Avenue and Seneca Street, saying hello to her fellow tenants as they passed, asking about their day or making a fuss over the occasional grandchildren who came through the door for a visit.
For the women who live in the building’s rooms – most poor or retired, many of them alone in the world – she was a maker of meals and a shoulder to cry on, a fixture in a bright kaftan who lived up to her nickname. She was “Big Mama.”
For her friends and the staff of the YWCA, which is dedicated to providing low-cost housing for women in need, the discovery of India Valdez’s decomposed body on Jan. 14, roughly seven weeks after her death, has rocked the very foundations of the building: No woman, no human being should end up like that, they say.
And, yet, three tenants and a former resident of the building say, it has happened before. On Jan. 26, residents presented a petition to YWCA management calling for new procedures that would prompt staff to reply more quickly whenever a resident goes missing.
When Valdez was not at her usual spot the day after Thanksgiving, say the tenants – who asked that their names be withheld out of concern for their housing – they noticed it immediately. As the days went by and Valdez still did not appear, they became concerned and went to staff to request a room check, in part, says one, because Valdez suffered from diabetes and a heart condition.
In early December, two residents did get a staff member to go to Valdez’s room, unlock the door and look in. But all she did, the tenants say, was visually scan the room and lock up again, even though Valdez’s television was on.
On Jan. 14, after she and others persisted in telling staff that something was wrong, the YWCA made the decision to call the police and file a missing person’s report, says Cathy MacCaul, the agency’s associate director of community affairs. “We did not feel that we had the right to go into her room and search,” MacCaul says, “so the police went in thinking they were going to look for additional information on where she went or how to contact family.”
What the police found, according to their incident report, was the television still playing, a fan running and India Valdez’s body lying in the space between her bed and a wall. Though she was decaying, an open window beside her had carried away the smell.
“It was pretty startling, pretty shocking,” says MacCaul, who works in the eight-story building, the YWCA’s Seattle headquarters. “When we heard about it, it was a very emotional time just to know something like that had happened.”
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office says Valdez, who was in her late 60s or early 70s and had worked as a nurse, died of natural causes on or around Dec. 1, but it’s unclear, her friends say, how long she might have been lying on the floor incapacitated before she died.
On Feb. 8, the residents held a meeting with the building’s management and proposed a number of procedures that staff could adopt to avoid similar tragedies. In addition to creating a “buddy system” in which one resident might be authorized by another to request a staff room check after a certain number of days, residents are asking that staff be more thorough when searching a room, including looking in closets or any other space that could contain a body.
They are also asking that rooms be thoroughly cleaned and painted after a death and that residents be allowed to conduct a ritual to spiritually cleanse the room.
MacCaul says the YWCA is considering the proposals and other measures, but most residents have told the agency that they don’t want staff constantly checking on them or knocking on their doors – a desire for privacy, she says, that the YWCA wants to respect. The tenants say the agency has taken that policy too far, however, and shouldn’t allow women to lie dead for weeks on end, especially, they say, when there’s an overpowering odor that is obvious and indecent to the living and the dead.
MacCaul says she has talked with staff at the building, some of whom have worked 20 years for the YWCA, and, to their knowledge, there have been no other circumstances like Valdez’s. But the three tenants and former resident and YWCA employee NaaSira Adeeba cite several deaths.
Before she moved out of the building in 2005, Adeeba says, she would visit a friend on the sixth floor, where there was an odor that was “just beyond wanting to ingest,” she says. The friend also told Adeeba that she had been finding maggots in her room. “It was very rough,” Adeeba says, when paramedics finally removed the decomposed body of a woman who lived next door.
In late 2006, the women say, the remains of another sixth-floor tenant whom staff believed was on vacation would be found by an inspector who entered the unit to test the smoke alarm.
In November of 2007, another friend of Adeeba’s – Mayonne Coakienos, a retired nurse – was found dead in her room three days after a trip and fall on the sidewalk. Though the 64-year-old Coakienos had a son, Adeeba says, it’s unclear if he ever knew of her death. Her ashes were laid to rest by King County in a burial service held in March 2009 for 209 indigents.
This past Christmas, Julia Rawlings, 51, was found dead in her room on a Monday after exhibiting strange behavior the previous Friday. She had been walking around the halls in a tank-top and underwear, a friend says, and looked ill.
In each case, building staff shared no information about the circumstances or cause of death, leaving an unexplained hole in residents’ lives, the tenants say. Adeeba used to work as a YWCA counselor helping abused women and says the deaths are very sad.
“For these women that are lying dead and nobody gives a crap, something’s wrong with that,” Adeeba says. “It’s a kind of door opener that we really do need to develop our sisterhood.”
Comments
Very sad to hear of a good woman passing without notice (at the time), but this article gives it some meaning, The ‘sisterhood’ needs to be awakened for many reasons—I’m in!!!
Though I take no pleasure in the death of Tom Stewart in a helicopter crash, the very thing he flew in from Vashon to West Seattle with no care on how that impacted on the people who lived there,I do find it interesting that his death makes the news, but there seems to be little or no concern for the lives and deaths of low income single women living in downtown Seattle.
People are paid to staff the YWCA to benefit the residents not just to spend X hours a week to get a paycheck. Using a little common sense can easily balance privacy issues and checking on the welfare of a resident who has exhibited a change in normal patterns.
Of course, that means having compassion, intelligence, and knowing a little something about the human beings who live in the building you are paid to serve.
When a woman simply disappears, why does it take so long to check?
I know those living near India who noted her sudden disappearance repeatedly asked Y staff to check on her—and it was at least six weeks before they did. Why?
It appears the YWCA needs to find a balance between privacy rights and concern for the well-being of its tenants. I think the “buddy system” mentioned in this article is vital, as it serves as a first alert to the YWCA staff. The staff should then immediately thoroughly search the room even if it means bringing in the inspector under the pretense of “checking the smoke alarms.” How sad a situation that this death went unnoticed and under-reported.
There have been a lot of changes in the housing staff and management in the past couple of years. There used to be more staff for residents to go to, but the new management cut back on staff, even though they raised rents in the building.
Some of you don’t know what you are talking about. Running a non-profit is expensive, and like most, YWCA is not swimming in cash, especially in such times when need is so great.
This is a sad case, but it just reflects that on the spectrum of privacy vs. checking-up, YWCA erred on the side of privacy. And now in response, they will change their policies and put in more safeguards. Let’s not forget that many of the people living there are traumatized women many of who have escaped horrible situations involving domineering people. They may be experiencing freedom for the first time in a good long while.
And above all, understand this was simply a convergence of unfortunate events. The window was open and a fan was on, and if this had not been the case, the timing would have been days not weeks, and this would not have been the same story.
Marts76 - this was a woman that everyone saw every day. She was always helping people and talking to people. Her friends knew right away something was wrong and asked for help. How much does it cost to have someone check in her room? It wasn’t just a “convergence of unfortunate events”. Everyone knew it wasn’t like her to just disappear, and if the management says they were just respecting her privacy, they’re covering up their own failure to act.
I lived at the Y for a few years post-divorce and the Y as a resource for women in times of need is invaluable! I, too, lost a friend that was living there, shortly after I moved into permanent housing. But she was found quickly.
I also agree with the ladies who have commented that they do not want to be bothered constantly by staff banging on their doors “just to see if they’re ok” - it would be a delicate balance. It was nice to have some good friendships develop during my stay there, and it was nice to have the YWCA as a resource, haven and buffer between the stress of a stormy, ending relationship and “my new life.”
LC - This *was* an unfortunate series of events: the YWCA privacy policy, the lack of a family who would have filed a missing persons report sooner, the friends who did not file one themselves, the skeleton crew at YWCA following layoffs, the window, the fan. It was a tragedy in every sense of the word, and I’d be certain the staff feels guilty enough especially now that they, who have taken low paying jobs at a non-profit dedicated to helping people, have been publicly chided by Real Change and now you. She was a long-term tenant and did not have a case worker. I just think this should be kept in proper perspective.
The Y has been spinning this from the beginning. This was one of several incidents. The Y blocks inquiries about friends who have gone missing. The bathrooms and Kitchens are shared, so people always see each other. Friends asking for a wellness check are given speeches about privacy. This is not an isolated incident. It took work, and this article to get them to move on this issue. The death in 2006 took 8 weeks to discover, and then only through a smoke alarm inspection. Please do not blame the victims. That has been happening enough.
Hello Tim,
Thanks for bringing this serious and troubling problem to my attention.
Do feel free to let me know if and how I can be of help.
M. Rogers
i find it odd ones assoc news of stewart in regards to women’s deaths..i never knew him but seemed he did lot of good. years ago i tried to do research about many many women who ened up dead or bad sit who went thru some homeless programs….there are people on vashon who had questionabole deaths as well…am tired of brutal circles who try mess up our good deserved housing, force to streets,,try to give to certain others…..........and question some who ran one off island,,let jerks run all over….....................wish could found ones to protect and helped with real projects….........
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