Jubilee is located on Capitol Hill and Wesa and I (along with other CHS community members probably) donate time and money to this worthwhile hood charity.

Rough transcription below (begins at 3:26 in video)

Narrated by Maria Hinojosa

Quotes by Kathryn Barnard

A growing segment of the homeless population are middle aged women whose children are all grown up.  In Seattle, photographer Kathryn Barnard met the residents of Jubilee Women’s Center which houses dozens of homeless women over 50.  Many of them have decades of work experience.  “Jubilee is located on the backside of Capitol Hill in Seattle, and it is in one of the more upscale posh neighborhoods and to see the dichotomy of these homeless women in this neighborhood was pretty fascinating.” 

Many of the women have never experienced homelessness before and have to be taught how to get services.  “It was really interesting because she had never known how to get food stamps or how to get bus passes or how to get any of that and then all of a sudden I’m in this position and I’m like wow you really don’t know where to go and what to do and how to do it and someone does have to teach you how to be homeless – it’s pretty amazing” 

Stephanie who asked that we not use her last name had been working as a medical assistant until she was laid off from her job last year, “She had always been the bread winner for the family. She was working full time but in part time positions usually covering for people on maternity leaves, and she’s job hunting for something that is permanent”.

She has three grown children, but none of them are able to take her in: “I think the hardest thing for her where she got really emotional was when she was talking about her first Christmas with without her home and that was very upsetting for her I think.  Maybe, she never really said this but that her kids might view her as a failure or the fact that she lost her home for her kids. So I think she wants to get that back and she’s determined, and she’ll do anything to get that back”.