A personal story of homelessness that's reforming policy
OLYMPIA — Mindy Woods has told her story countless times, but each retelling still brings tears to her eyes. Her voice catches just a little as she recalls the two times she was homeless.
The first time, the Edmonds resident was too embarrassed to even tell her closest friends that she and her 13-year-old son no longer had a home.
Things shifted early one morning several years ago. She was living in a hotel the YWCA was renting for her until shelter space became available. As she was leaving to take her son to school, she bumped into her son’s best friend and his father in the exact same situation.
“That was the day that opened my eyes that I needed to let go of my pride,” Woods said. “I needed to get over my shame, my embarrassment. I just felt change wasn’t going to happen unless people knew.”
After that, she opened up to her church congregation about her struggles to find housing.
“The world kept spinning,” she said. “Horrible things didn’t happen.”
She continued to share her story, from small community groups all the way to the state capital.
This legislative session she was a constant figure in Olympia representing the Resident Action Project. A statewide group with over 800 members, it was launched by the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance in 2015. It is comprised largely of homeless and formerly homeless advocates.
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