With Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville requesting that Governor Jay Inslee declare a state of emergency with homelessness throughout the state, I am reflecting on when I was temporarily homeless in 2015.

It all started when my best friend (now current roommate), Vee, and I decided in the spring that we wanted to live together. We scoped out apartments and started saving up toward making a deposit. However, it took us too long to set aside the money, and by that point, all of the two-bedroom apartments were taken. If they were available, the waitlists were usually more than five people long. By September, we were desperate for anything, including sharing a single bedroom.

My previous lease expired at the end of June, and I comfortably (and not-so-comfortably) traveled around the country, staying at hotels and with friends and family. When I would visit Bellingham, I would stay at Vee’s, whose lease wasn’t up until the end of August. When classes started, I had no choice but to stay in Bellingham, away from any family. We rented out a storage unit off of Samish Way to keep our stuff when her lease ended. Fortunately for her, she was able to find friends who were able to house her for weeks at a time. I, on the other hand, had trouble finding somewhere to crash.

Any friends who were willing to host me were only able to do so for a single night. They cited not wanting to trouble their roommates as the reason for being able to accommodate me for only a short period of time. That being the case, I began every day not knowing where I would sleep that night. I resorted to posting in Facebook groups asking if anybody would allow me to couch-surf, never receiving a response. I even offered to pay. While I did have money, it was certainly not enough to sleep at a hotel every night. My roommate and I even went to check out the weekly rates of hotels along Samish. Unfortunately, even they were too expensive for us.

Because it was getting harder to find a place to stay, I went to find a solution where every Millennial with a problem goes: Yik Yak. People suggested camping out in the woods, sleeping in classrooms, homeless shelters, etc. I didn’t have camping supplies, and I was too scared -- for multiple reasons -- to actually try that out. I looked up homeless shelters, and I got the impression that temporary stays were only for those who were “established homeless” – those without shelter for weeks at a time.

One evening, I was having no luck in finding a place to sleep. I scoped out a couple of classrooms that seemed enough out of the way where hopefully no students or faculty would stumble upon me in the night. Before having to actually curl up in the classroom for the night, my mom contacted me, worried about my situation. She booked me a hotel room for the next couple of nights. I begrudgingly accepted her help, too exhausted to argue with her.

I was already trying to go to my storage unit every day in order to gather my day’s supplies: food, clothes, and more. With my hotel near Fred Meyer, traveling around wore me out even more. What gave me the most trouble during this whole ordeal was food and refrigeration. Because I had no access to a refrigerator, I had to buy fresh food (such as fruit and vegetables) with the mindset of eating them right away, or even saving leftovers for later, knowing that it put my health at risk. Of course, buying prepared food or enough for a single serving is not economical. I had to heavily rely on packaged food.

My salvation came in the form of the Central Lutheran Church on North Forest. One of my aunts found a housing ad on Craiglist for Sternberg Hall, the Christian-friendly residence for students in Bellingham. While I was on a bus from Seattle to Bellingham (after going there to celebrate my sister’s birthday), my mom had called them to see if they would allow me to stay for a couple of weeks. That night, I finally had a place to call home.

Sternberg Hall was a pleasant stay, but my real luck was when I was posting more couch-surfing pleas on Facebook (this time for Vee) and found someone who was looking to pass on their lease. Vee and I put in our applications and after mid-October, found ourselves in our current place – a spacious, yet cozy two-bedroom apartment.

Though stressful, it was an eye-opening experience for the both of us. Because we had money and friends or family to look after us, we were able to power through. A lot of people at the brink of homelessness don’t have these support systems, and there don’t seem to be (enough) resources for those who aren’t already “established homeless.” Lack of money, mental illness, and having a family to look after are many obstacles for those in unstable housing situations. While Vee and I were able to make it out all right, the rapid descent into homelessness is not a condition that a lot of people are properly prepared for, and cannot easily escape.