White Center

Drove Danica and Jayse to their new home at The Willows in historic White Center (located between Burien and West Seattle) this afternoon.  It was a nice modern facility for single mothers struggling with homelessness, chemical dependency and more.

Danica needed a money order to pay her first month’s rent and so we stopped at the US Bank in downtown White Center.  It was the most multicultural a community I have seen in Seattle with stores serving a dozen different ethnicities within a block.

For a guy in a wheelchair, White Center stores were a throwback in time to the 1970s or earlier.  A large fraction of one story buildings built slightly above ground level did not have wheelchair access due to a step or two at the front door.  The last time I saw that was parts of Honolulu in the early 1980s.  It might not have been the 3^rd world, err, a lesser developed country, but it clearly was not Bellevue.

Don’t get me wrong, I love different cultures. I find them exotic, mysterious and fascinating. Hopefully we will see Danica again and maybe go out to eat in White Center.  Based on White Center’s alias as Rat City, it always sounded like, at best, a rough neighborhood.  Googling Rat City revealed that R.A.T. during WWII stood for either Reserve Army Training center or Restricted Alcohol Territory a military term for a place designated off limits for service men.

I am grateful for places such as The Willows so that young single mother’s like Danica have a place to live with their young children have a much better chance at functional life than being forced to couch-surf their way life.  Being poor sucks.  Being poor and homeless makes for a Hobbesian existence.  I am also extra grateful for my apartment in Bellevue.  There are worse places to live that are far less safe and wheelchair accessible.