Narrative Introduction

At the end of a weekday, many working Americans watch the clock: 3:45, 4:30, 4:50, 4:55, 4:57, freedom. At the end of a weekday, may working Americans sit in traffic: 5 more exits, 3 more exits, 1 more exit, home. Oh how it feels to be home and isolated from the troubles of the day - the phone calls, the files, the complaints. But for many Americans, that is precisely where the trouble begins. Oh how it feels to be homeless. Pushing paper and flipping burgers almost seems like an escape for the x percent of Seattle individuals and families who cannot afford housing in this metropolitan city. Sitting on the number four bus headed downtown from Capitol Hill, I sat next to a woman and her two young children. "While I was pregnant with this one" she says nodding to the eldest of the two, "this was home." Under the I-5 overpass. Home. At the end of the weekday, this annonymous, selfless mother was happy to return to her new home in a low-income apartment complex on Broadway Avenue and Pine.