Participant Stories

Carrie grew up in poverty. She experienced the impact of alcoholism in her family and has never forgotten the lasting effects of that on her childhood. She was able to graduate from high school with honors but soon found herself struggling with the same disease that had plagued her family. As a result, she ended up living in her car and homeless in her early twenties...

When Heather came to Housing Hope looking for housing, she felt overwhelmed. Her health was in a severe decline. Her son, who is on the Autism Spectrum, needed structure and stability. Her husband had left them. And her sister, who counted on her for support, needed a place to live too. After several months of couch surfing at friends’ homes, and a period of homelessness, Heather was exhausted...

I'm a lifelong Puget Sound resident. I love this place! As a kid, I went to Salty Sea Days, caught 99 cent double features at Everett Theater, jigged for herring off the docks of Marine View, poured over Archie comics at the Everett Comic Book store, and ferried to Hat Island numerous times a year. I was only 5 months old when our father left...

Janet is doing the hard work to stay clean and sober why she puts her life together. She has been healthy for 2 years and is working with one of Housing Hope’s Family Support Coaches, Siobhan Ecker. Janet has a stable place to live as well as her children back which is very important to her...

“My battle with addiction started when I was ten years old. My parents were addicts, which created that unhealthy lifestyle at an early age. I started with marijuana and alcohol, but before too long, I was using meth, dropping out of school during my seventh-grade year, and running the streets of Las Vegas. Addiction took over for the next 25 years."

“Our first night in the shelter at Housing Hope, I sat in the living room, alone in the dark for a long time. Nick and our son, who was 2 at the time, had gone to bed, and I just sat on the little futon that came with the apartment and stared around the room. It was the first time in a few years we had a place of our own. I could not believe we had our own space to live."