Location?: Outside of Bartell Drugs on 45th St.
What is your name?: Catherine or Cat
Where are you from?: San Francisco, but moved to Seattle in Third Grade. I’ve been homeless on and off my whole adult life.
What do you think of the neighborhood?: I like Wallingford. The people are friendly. They have enough money to buy the paper but they don’t have so much money that they’re snobs.
Favorite Wallingford moment?: I meet people I wouldn’t ordinarily meet, it’s been a real blessing, the interaction with people in my daily life. I met some friends here who got me involved with a class at Antioch University, a women’s group.
Finally, what is your favorite food?: Homemade cheesecake!
Catherine shows one of her sketches; she has been drawing since she was a girl. Check out her poetry and other blog posts at the Real Change website.
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This is a great way to make people recognize the homeless in our community as real people. Thank you so much. Please do more of them.
Helen–Thank you so very much on the nearly instant success of your article. People are already coming up to me on the street! I’m gonna put my artwork (copies and such) in my sachel and autograph drawings, if someone should want to buy one. This is more than that, though–the beauty of this the way I think we both see it, is that we have put a real face of a formerly homeless person ot there, to be seen and recognized, and shown that they have gifts, like anybody else, well, almost anybody! So, again, you have my utmost respect and gratitude for helping me further my career…May God shower Blessings upon you for this…most sincerely, Cat.
Bless you too, Cat. It was a pleasure getting to know you.
I’m going to be keeping an eye out for you Cat. Look forward to seeing your work more closely!
Greetings to my fellow Wallingfordians! How’re ya doin’? This is Cat, here–the one in the above picture. I need to explain a certain matter to you all…If you don’t see me out in front of Bartell” when it is NOT raining, then it’s because any one of the several panhandlers got there first and won’t relinquish it to a Real Change vendor–namely, me. Sometimes they do for Al, who starts after i leave (@ 2 or 3:PM)–maybe he has some kinda charm that I don’t have, but the situation has become such that I am now having to go into Ballard, where I set up in front of the Golden Harvest Bread Co., right next to Bop records and the 99 cents store. It’s cool with the merchants, and I have tunes, but I miss my clientele, with whom I’ve grown to be fond of. I’ll try to keep selling the paper there, @ Bartell’s, knowing that I have a back-up spot .But I can’t help but wonder what the rest of you think @ panhandling, and are those of you who give them $$$ aware of where it’s going, how it’s being spent? Please take a moment to blog back or, if you see me, tell me what you think @ this. It frustrates me, makes me angry, makes me sad. The Real Change newspaper is there for people to sell so that they DON’T have to fly a cardboard sign. So, go figure. I don’t wanna get beat up over this, so I might just end up making Ballard my new location. But, I’ll miss the community of Wallingford, and I just betcha they don’t have a blog site like this one–hell, they probably don’t even have a blog site at all…
Whatever happens, thank you for your interest–I’ll see you around. Ciao 4 now—Cat.