EP013: The Learning Curve
Transcript available here.
In this episode, you will be hearing from Kaitlyn, a young woman struggling through addiction, homelessness, and loss.
When we first met Kaitlyn, she was in her tent suffering from a great deal of physical and emotional pain. She had an abscess located at her lower butt cheek, which was swollen and badly infected. In fact, she was burning up with a high fever. Even worse, for her, she was emotionally distraught over a stranger having taken Prince, her dog, her best friend.
Kaitlyn was at a serious low point. Her need for housing, drug rehab, and therapy, were unavailable, all deadends. She was slipping through the cracks.
When people are in their moment of deep struggle, we all have difficulty in knowing how best to be of service. It can feel insurmountable. Each person in need has different barriers, with different complexities, and different abilities.
However, what is common to each person is the need for human connection. It begins there. And with this connection, the best path forward, one that often is hidden, begins to reveal itself.
A small group of people formed a community and began to get to know Kaitlyn. From those friendships, a path forward for her emerged.
The idea, or act, of Mutual Aid has been around for a long time, for a very long time. Perhaps, in the simplest form, from the beginning of time.
Mutual Aid is nothing more than people coming together, in community, to take care of each other, often addressing basic needs and human rights that are not being met.
The barriers, or, the reason for needs not being met and/or rights not being afforded, are often systemic and political. The people who get involved in Mutual Aid are motivated by the injustices and want to take part in direct action. Which includes, providing services, advocating for needed systems change, and connections through friendship.
In the United States, we see Mutual Aid groups forming as early as the late 1700’s, often by minority groups being oppressed. Today there has been a resurgence of participation in Mutual Aid. The Covid pandemic, Black Lives Matter, and homelessness are just a few examples illustrating that the societal systems used to serve us are not adequately meeting the needs of our community. For that reason, people are stepping forward to get involved.
“My parents were never together. They were split up before I remember it really. My dad was a drug addict. My mom was hidden drug addict. The first memory I remember was my dad taking me to the father daughter dance. And like we stayed just long enough to take pictures and then we took me store to store to store to buy pseudoephedrine. I was like, maybe nine or ten.” - Kaitlyn, photo taken April 2023
Volunteer opportunities we feel you should explore
Mutual Aid Seattle Large list of Seattle Mutual Aid groups
Stop The Sweeps Seattle Mutual aid group.
Union Gospel Mission Recovery Program.
Emerald City Resource Guide Up to date list of services in the Seattle Area.
Facing Homelessness Window of kindness and The BLOCK Project.
Sound Foundations NW Weekly tiny homes constriction volunteer opportunities.
Urban Rest Stop Hygiene services offered to those living on the street.
People's Harm Reduction Alliance Health and Harm Reduction Services.
Ballard Food Bank Volunteer opportunities.
University Food Bank Volunteer opportunities.
ROOTS Young Adult Shelter with Volunteer opportunities.
“I've just been wrestling with issues of privilege. And so I think I have to say, despite growing up what I perceived as poor, I met a certain amount of privilege in my life. And that gives me time to spend on other things. I grew up in a house full of love, sort of lower middle class, meaning holes in my shoes, but not going to bed hungry. And one of my parents, my dad, was, at some level, a street kid, dropped out of school in eighth grade and so forth, described himself as a house breaker and you know, forced to survive in a lot of ways. So there's a certain inherited empathy for people who are outside the system of privilege at the same time. And it is also true that that a lot of the past couple few decades, I've spent a lot of time working on issues around Palestine and Palestinian Liberation, and being part of that struggle, which is 10,000 miles away, but I've been over there a lot has enabled me to be in it and outside of it at the same time. And so it has helped me understand systemically what privilege is about and to see myself in relation to my own world in a different way. And understand, not just that it's nice to be nice to people, but that there's there can be an inherited responsibility for responsibility and repair and solidarity. For those that are privileged for those that are a privilege.”
- Ed, photo taken April 2023
“When I first met Kaitlyn, she was having some pretty significant physical health issues. And like many unhoused people not really trusting, going to medical settings, or hospitals or clinics and struggling with her substance use and her mental health, and her relationships and just kind of general survival as well. She's always been someone who's incredibly fiery and knows, like, Isn't, is not afraid to say what she thinks. And I think that's really beautiful, given everything that she's been through that that she hasn't been silenced. You know, that she still has her voice. Because I see a lot of people that don't. And it's pretty hard to get that back. Not impossible, but it's a journey, and she still has that and still has her fight. And so I think when I met her, I saw that in her I think Edie Zod and her to her dog was taken in a time when she was not able to take care of herself very well and she needed her dog like to have it to support her. And that was like her dog was her rock and that time and unfortunately someone with power and money tricked her”
- Katie, photo taken March 2023
Kaitlyn Prior to getting Prince back. Photo taken September 2021
Kaitlyn and Prince reuniting in the parking lot. Photos taken by Ed
Kaitlyn and Prince. Photo taken April 2023