Living in the Shadows: April and Matt

City of Auburn
3 min readJan 25, 2023

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Living in the Shadows is a monthly blog written by the City of Auburn’s Anti-homelessness Outreach Coordinator Matt Landis.

Picture yourself living in your car with your fiancée. You have no heat and no way of coping with the unpredictable elements of Western Washington weather. You’re far from home as you’re originally from the east coast. You left due to broken family relationships and a related loss of housing.

You and your fiancée both have mental health barriers as well, which make it seem practically impossible to move forward in a hard-to-navigate social services system. You also must manage your multiple pets and sleep in your car the whole time, hoping you have enough fuel to survive another night. You’re hoping to get back to work as soon as possible — at least one of you — so that you can make money and get a place of your own. Then, you have to stop and say, “Hold on, we don’t have valid IDs first so maybe we need to find a caseworker who can help us with that also.”

This is the story of one of our Auburn couples experiencing homelessness who I housed recently in town: their names are April and Matt. Their story is one of resilience, perseverance, and ultimately meaningful success. As our city’s Anti-Homelessness Outreach Program Coordinator, I had the honor of assisting them in achieving this success.

This couple came to us in late October 2022 as they had to find a new life in the area after relocating from the east coast. They came with the clothes on their back, their belongings in their car, their pets, and each other. After sleeping in various areas of Auburn and the surrounding area, they Googled safe parking and were able to find the Auburn Food Bank’s Safe Parking program located in the parking lot of their Ray of Hope shelter.

This program is operated by who we believe at the city to be an angel on earth, Executive Director Debbie Christian. Soon after, I connected with them about their goals. April and Matt noted that Matt wanted to get back to work as soon as possible, they wanted to both get their Washington State IDs valid as they were expired, and they wanted to find housing as soon as possible. This began what can often be an extremely agonizing process of applying for housing and ensuring they get approved due to some of their past housing barriers such as credit and evictions.

Their patience was tested often, they mention, but it made it all worth it. They often told their prospective landlord, “We’ll move in tonight and crash on the floor if we must. We just want to get in.” Over the last few months, they accomplished all of these goals: their achievements culminated with them recently moving into a unit of their own. They worked in conjunction with us at the city along with Salvation Army’s Street Level Ministries program to make this happen. Salvation Army’s program exists solely to house individuals living in their vehicles (of any kind) in King County. April remarked, “I can cook again. We can be whole again. We can be a real family again and breathe. We can rest and be clean and feel some dignity.” Matt quickly agreed with April’s sentiments. Matt also has a warehouse job locally that he really wanted to obtain. This enables them to have the financial means to take care of themselves and be successful short and long-term in housing.

The resilient story of April and Matt sure has had a happy ending. This chapter of their lives concluded on January 12, 2023, when they moved into their new home. They can now move forward and smile as they navigate this next chapter-surely a bright future where they will be successful and contributing members of our wonderful community.

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City of Auburn
City of Auburn

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