EP018: Seeing the precious other
Transcript available here
When responding to complex societal issues, we are all familiar with the shortcomings of treating symptoms rather than causes.
Even so, despite knowing this, we also all know how easy it is to go down that path. When an issue is screaming at us, any issue, our knee-jerk reaction is to just make it go away, make it stop.
When the city of Seattle puts up chain link fencing to keep the homeless out from under freeways and bridges, it is addressing a symptom, the unsightliness of encampments. The fences are meant to make it go away. We, as a community, passively allow it to happen because, in the moment, it feels better to not see what is unsightly. It is literally, out of sight, out of mind for us. However, for the homeless, they are still homeless.
So how do we shift our focus to successfully addressing root issues rather than symptoms? How do we get past giving in to knee-jerk responses?
We begin by understanding that, for the most part, the symptoms of homelessness are what the housed community feels and are impacted by and the root causes are what the unhoused community feels and are impacted by. When we respond to symptoms, we need to know that we are responding to our needs, rather than the needs of those struggling. It is an important distinction, an important and necessary shift.
When we act compassionately, and intentionally, with this knowledge, we open ourselves to the uncertainty, to the uncomfortableness, of homelessness, and beautifully begin our own journey of addressing the root causes of others’ struggles.
In this episode we have the sincere pleasure of talking with Sparrow Etter Arlson. Sparrow has been living with intention toward her unhoused neighbors for the last 21 years. She is a co-founder of the Green Bean Coffeeshop, co-founder of Aurora Commons and its (SHE) Clinic, the acronym SHE standing for Safe, Healthy, and Empowered, and the Founder of Sacred Streets. Sparrow is now the Seattle Planning Specialist at King County Regional Homelessness Authority.
Excerpt from the episode: “This was when I was 22. I had gotten an internship at a homeless shelter in Chicago 40 women staying in this particular shelter. What would happen when I started to clean alongside them is, of course, inevitably they started to share with me. So, months, you know, I don't remember what time I don't recall how many months it had been that I was cleaning alongside them, where I started to notice a pattern of a bus that would pull up in front of the shelter. All these people get out of the bus and they would come behind in the kitchen start making food and it was, you know, the crew that was volunteered from like a church out in the suburbs that would drive in a lot of times, I would see like people flirting with one another because it was like a singles group that would come and prepare the food and all these people are coming in.
We're cleaning this building, I'm talking to all these women and one of them looked at me one day and they just said, ‘you have any idea what it feels like to see people being Bussed in every day to make food for you. I grew up in this city in this like square block radius my whole life. Never once have I been asked to be a part of something. Never once have I been asked to like offer myself to volunteer on behalf of my community. Do you have any idea what that feels like? ‘ And that was it for me. That changed the trajectory of my life”. - Sparrow Etter Arlson
Early years when Sparrow was hosting street BBQs, which would eventually become the Aurora Commons. (The Commons is the red building in the background.)
Sparrow Etter Arlson has been living with intention toward her unhoused neighbors for the last 21 years. She is a co-founder of Green Bean Coffeeshop, co-founder of Aurora Commons and its Safe, Healthy, Empowered (SHE) Clinic, Founder of Sacred Streets and is now the Seattle Planning Specialist at King County Regional Homelessness Authority. You can find Sacred Streets online at oursacredstreets.com and Aurora Commons at www.auroracommons.org
Recent articles by Sparrow
May 24, 2023 - Real Change News Threshold
February 1, 2023 - Real Change News Dazzling and cruel transitions: Helping an unhoused person doesn’t end at housing them