Opportunity Place

Andrea & Rodger @ dialysis

Opportunity Place, on 3rd and Virginia in downtown Seattle, this is the YWCA apartment building where Andrea, my girlfriend lives. The building entrance is between a dry cleaners and a Women's Health Clinic and Homeless Shelter called "Angeline's". Regularly, mornings and evenings the women line up along the sidewalk to get into the shelter. Some don't get in. They lie down outside and sleep on the sidewalk. This is how we treat our women, our sisters, our aunties, our daughters, our mothers, and  our grandmothers. Go and look and see them. Women in such despair that they will sit at a closed bus stop for hours. She would sit there. The bus isn't coming. The stop is closed due to street construction, but she would sit at the bus stop as if it were coming.

Other women are weeping and talking to themselves as they wander this sidewalk.

At Opportunity Place guest must sign up in advance and leave their id with the guard or receptionist at the front desk. Belltown is one block away. Crack addicts roam these streets in search of a crack hit or a hustle to get one. Andrea lives on the 7th floor. I can stay 10 consecutive days only. If I stay longer it's a violation of her lease. She got me in trouble at my old place and now it's the reverse.

Queen Anne Shelter is full. The new navigation center only takes referrals from law enforcement. Again, if I break the law and camp illegally, I can go to the new shelter, otherwise....no entry.....

Lawbreakers always get housing??????