The Story of Rellik in Seattle
Rellik has been homeless for twenty years, which is nearly half his life. Like most of us, he works at addressing the barriers, forever trying to move forward. For the homeless, those barriers are overwhelming.
I’ve often said to Rellik, “I don’t know how you do it.” Several weeks ago I decided to ask if I could be his shadow, to follow him wherever he went. I wanted to see how he goes about his day to day life. Last week I pitched my tent next to his to spend three days and three nights. He agreed, and then said, “It’s gonna be cold, are you sure?”
Well, he was right. I made it through two nights of temps in the high 20s, and then, for the third, I made the executive decision to head home. Temperatures were dropping into the low twenties, high teens, my warm bed was calling. It wasn’t lost on me the privilege’s I have with that option available to me.
Rellik’s tent is placed along I-5, about 40 feet from the edge of the freeway. The first thing you notice, which is unavoidable, is how extremely loud it is. What is not obvious at first, is that the whoosh of traffic just keeps going, day and night, with no let up. A roar of blaring white noise punctuated by the rumble of logging trucks, sirens, and the modified mufflers intended to be as loud as is possible.
There were a number of takeaways from the experience. The first is just the shear amount of walking Rellik does. I mean, I knew transportation was a barrier for the homeless, but I had no idea. People living at or below the poverty line should not have to pay for public transit.
At one point, when coming out of Rellik’s Vocational Counselor meeting, located at 130th and Aurora, Rellik said, “Let’s head back to the tents.” I asked if we were taking the bus. He looked at me and said, “No, we’re walking.” The tents were a little over 50 blocks away.
Another surprise to me was how quickly some of my habits fell away. At home, every night I floss / brush my teeth and then put my nightguard in. I’m a grinder. I also take a daily Vitamin D and Lipitor pill. Even though I brought all of that with me, I did none of it. Nothing. I thought about it, for a second, but my hands were cold and I was tired, and, and, and.
We walked to the QFC grocery store, 1.6 miles away from the tents, to dumpster dive for dinner. Unfortunately, or fortunately in my case, the chain link fence was locked so we couldn’t get to it. To save the moment, I offered to buy us dinner, getting something at QFC to bring back to our camp. After finishing my sushi and orange, I sat there in my tent, wondering what to do with the garbage. Here is the thing, I hate littering, like really really hate it. Like hate is not a strong enough word. However, I didn’t want the soy sauce dripping into my backpack and I didn’t want the rats coming into the tent to find the smell of food. In that moment, after putting all the orange peels into the empty plastic sushi container, I thought, should I just throw it into the bushes? Wow, that was on my second night, ready to bend my long held disgust of littering. I wondered, where would my line on littering be after months, or years, living outside.
The first night, about 1:30 AM, I had to go pee. The temperature was below freezing. Tucked in my sleeping bag, nose cold, it took me about a half hour to decide what to do. Rather than get up and go away from the tent, like I always do when tent camping with my wife, I unzipped the side flap, pulled the tent bottom back, wiggled half out of my sleeping bag and leaned out to relieve myself. When zipping the tent flap back up, I heard Rellik yell over to me, “Rex, you okay?” I have no idea how he heard me through the roar of traffic, but it made me smile that he was keeping an eye on me, or at least an ear.
I am going to post a number of pictures in the comments over the next few days along with short narratives about the various experiences. PLEASE comment with questions or observations. We all need to be talking about homelessness, finding the shared views and creating the needed compassionate solutions.
I am also including Rellik’s Venmo account. He could use extra funds during this cold snap. A heartfelt THANK YOU to all those giving support and LOVE for Rellik! @Raven-Rellik
So much gratitude and love to you Rellik for letting me be your shadow and for taking good care of me during my time with you.
LOVE.
Source: Facebook Page “You Know Me Now” via “Facing Homelessness”
