Creating a safer world through housing justice: a conversation with Bria and Ariyah

Captured and edited by Lavender Rights Project staff
Recorded by Ebo Barton in Fall 2023

Bri'a: Hello from the Housing Justice Department at the Lavender Rights Project. My name is Bri'a Love, I'm the Housing Programs Manager, and my pronouns are she and her. Welcome.

Ariyah: Hi, and my name is Ariyah Janae. I'm the Community Counselor here at Lavender Rights Project. My pronouns are she and her as well. I'm also with the Housing Justice Department alongside Bri'a Love and Ebo Barton.

Bri'a: All right. Let's just jump right into it. I feel like we both have a lot of things to touch on these broad topics that are very particular to our community. Just wanting to make sure we touch on housing, mental health and our personal experiences, as well as what we've experienced through our work in housing, mental health, houselessness, and mental wellness. 

Ariyah: Let's dive right in. I'm originally from the South: Montgomery, Alabama to be exact. One of the reasons why I moved here was because I came out as trans very publicly in the South, left my career, and received a lot of fallout afterwards. And so, sitting in a space where I was losing my home and wasn't working anymore, I was honestly in a place of hopelessness. It became very dark for me—to the point where I learned how to survive in darkness. Where I thought that it just was a part of life if we didn't have what we needed or things like the bare minimum. I really was content with just surviving.

And I think that the whole purpose of the work that we do is to propel people into a space where  sustainable living is not an unattainable goal. It doesn't seem like it's a far fetched thing, right?

Bri'a: Right.

Ariyah: When I got here, to the Pacific Northwest, I found a little hope. And so one of the things that I wanted to do—in every way—was to be a part of a team that was about giving people hope. You know what I mean? Hope that is attainable and not some kind of dream. It doesn't seem far fetched. Because nobody should have to worry about where they're going to lay their head down and  nobody should  have to worry about if they have food to eat. It's actually—it's a bare minimum necessity and it should be the first priority of every system that works throughout a community.

Bri'a: I absolutely agree with that. And it happens a lot. I'm sorry that you had that experience with coming out and  being negated. I know that you said that you were hopeless and learned how to operate out of a place of hopelessness. And I hope that I'm not digging too deep, but I've been at a place of hopelessness before in my life as well.

Ariyah: Really? What did that season look like for you?

Bri'a: That season looked like not knowing where I was going to sleep each night, staying in hotels,  and park benches at schools because it was safe. I could just wake up and get to school. Bouncing around from place to place, moving like 10 to 12 to 15 times a year. And I operated out of hopelessness, but I knew that's not what I wanted for myself.

Ariyah: Because it's not what you deserve.

Bri'a: Exactly. But also, I just thought those were the cards that I was dealt. So I had to focus on that first before I could even get to the point of getting to my identity crisis.

Ariyah: I think that's one of the things that really ties a person's whole care experience. It's all the things that affect our day-to-day life. It directly affects the way that we're able to show up. It directly affects the way that we're able to process. Even right now, I'm in the middle of a move right now, and I find myself even now, knowing where to go, overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to get the things and find something. And so even in this place, I'm someone that's gainfully employed and it's still a real life experience.

I remember when I first got here I lived at someone else's house, and then I got an apartment that was just me, a blowup mattress, and a pallet—because a blowup mattress went flat on me. A couch that somebody gave me that came from their apartment's dumpster room. You know what I mean? Because I didn't have anything. And I think about community members that maybe don't have a job that pays them a livable salary.

Bri'a: And what is livable?

Ariyah: Because the true cost of living is what? 124,000 now?

Bri'a: Yeah.

Ariyah: If we think about that houselessness and the potential state of being homeless, all of these experiences affect how we're able to not just show up. It also affects how we're able to process and think through things. I think that for a lot of people, they trigger people into spaces of depression, anxiety. And then people try to operate and go about their day like nothing is going on. But in real life, for you on the inside, you feel like your whole world is falling apart and you're just trying to juggle it.

I think that one of the things as we're talking about justice, we're talking about sustainable living. Let's get people where they need to be. Then let's give people tools to stay there. And while they're with us, and while they're in community with us, and while they're in conversation with us, all of our work has got to be geared toward giving people new ways of being. New ways, new practices, different tools, and different resources that will set them up so that the next time they have to move–the next time they're looking for a place—they understand that there is so much they still have access to and deserve. You know what I mean? And I think that's what ties everything that we do altogether.

Bri'a: I have to agree.I know that we've touched on our experiences and both of us coming from the South: me, Florida, and you, Alabama. And being Southern girls, it's not the best experience there. I want to touch on  how the experience may seem simpler here, because it's still not.

Ariyah: The experience, right?

Bri'a: Exactly. We come from cities where we're not used to seeing this many houseless folks all around housing or resources. And then it's a sanctuary city, so a lot of the folks out here do experience houselessness. They come here because they can be houseless and not be okay, but living in their hopelessness.

Ariyah: Where resources are available.

Bri'a: Living their hopelessness but also because of the resources.

Ariyah: It's a survival tactic. You know what I'm saying? It is just that mindset of, "We got to go get it. We gotta get it. We just got to get to it. We gotta get it. We have got to get to it." And by the time we get to it, it's already spun. You know what I mean? 

Bri'a: Yeah. I think that none of it is linear, so I think that everyone's experience is extremely different. Everyone's experience touches them, moves you in a different way. But also it ties us to each other—to what we know—and we're not the only ones who feel this way. And the folks that we are supporting our community, the resources that we need for our community. Like my struggle, I may think it's terrible or what I've been through I may think it's terrible, and no one has to agree with that.

But also there's a lot of people who have it a lot worse. Like you said, we are gainfully employed now, and we did get to the light at the end of the tunnel. But also-

Ariyah: Come on Bri'a.

Bri'a: ... there's more out there.

Ariyah: There's more out there that we should have access to.

Bri'a: There's more but we're-

Ariyah: That we deserve to have access to.

Bri'a: ... surviving. We're surviving.

Ariyah: We're still surviving.

Bri'a: We're still in survival mode.

Ariyah: What's the difference between survival mode and sustainability?

Bri'a: Survival and sustainability. I feel like survival is operating out of fear for your life. And sustainability is being able to uphold yourself with the support of people that you have become aligned with, and allowing a community of collective care to look after the entire community. Sustainability takes a community effort. It's more than us by ourselves in this.

Sustainability is also being able to have a full community of support with wraparound services. I may not know how to do something that you may know how to do, but we can learn from each other then take those skills and tailor them to others. Every person has some type of something to offer. And even when they don't have anything to offer, we still have that continuum of care and support.

Right now, my whole hope in this is that we give everything that we lack as a community. Everything that was stripped from us and taken, but given back and made fruitful, sustainable—not survival but living. I can think about the collective picture that I want everyone to be able to be at: regardless of how major, minor or catastrophic anyone’s struggle has been, we should all not be doing it alone anymore.

Ariyah: I think that really centers to LRP work and mission. As Black trans femme folk, LRP centers. We center our work in this.

Bri'a: And that's helped me center us and myself, absolutely.

Ariyah: I think that LRP is, in real time, showing us that we are not unattached from the work that we do. The work that we do is not just for a community and everyone else to be okay. It's, in real time, the privilege of sitting and looking at ourselves and having to answer tough questions, then moving through these moments and seasons of realization. And as a Black trans woman, I must say that's probably the best part about working with this organization and doing the work that we do.

Bri'a: Right. I couldn't have touched on that better than you did just now. Where else are we centered ever? We're not. It's actually the opposite. We're not centered. We're pushback. Shunned. And that goes back to resources. Like, back to mental health, and healing, and living in a way that is conforming to society's ideology of what the world should be—which is all also rooted in white patriarchy. And I think that when it comes to resources and helping folks that are houseless, I think that our community gets the shit under the stick. If we were cisgender or if we were working for cisgender clients, I would have probably hundreds more options or resources for folks. But there's not safe spaces. I just can't be grateful enough for the opportunity and the whole thought that an organization like LRP in Seattle exists. It's really magical. It's really touching.

Ariyah: It's magical. It's magical because I remember starting this transition and just wanting someone that would just hold my hand a little bit. Because, and I was talking to Vanessa Granberry last night. We were having a conversation and we were just talking about the experience. And one of the pieces that we talked about and we covered together was honestly, the piece of this experience where you find yourself as a young woman with no tools or resources for how to be a young woman.

Bri'a: Exactly.

Ariyah: The only thing we have to go by are pictures and videos and social media that tells us what it looks like to be pretty. As if our womanhood is summed up just by our aesthetic, and not by us as women, right? As Black women, I find that we weren't given the tools to really learn how to navigate womanhood and how to show up in space and really be successful and thrive. Instead, I think we were given tools on how to survive, how to look right, how to present,  and how to show up in space in some ways—and typically it's just to be pretty. Because if you're pretty enough, they'll leave you alone.

But the truth of the matter is, the woman in me is not satisfied just by my makeup. The woman in me is not satisfied just by sex appeal. The woman in me, she doesn't feel fulfilled. The moments where I feel my most fulfilled is when I have someone that will tell me how to be for real. Give me tactics and tools on how to maneuver these spaces and systems that were not made for me. It's hard to talk about going to get a house as a trans woman or going to get an apartment as a trans woman or a person of trans experience when I hadn't even got my name changed yet, and y'all got 20 questions coming through the door, right?

I'm uncomfortable because I got to come in that space and I don't really know how I'm going to be greeted. I don't know how I'm going to be so it makes it hard to move. Any place where I have to do an introduction that includes legal documentation, if I have not taken care of my stuff, I am in, "Okay. Make sure that this is right, make sure this is right, make sure this is right."

Bri'a: Absolutely. And touching on that portion specifically for, that ties to what we're doing right now, folks, I know it's not legal, but also these private landlords or people that are showing you apartments and whatnot still will lie. If they find out who you are and don't like who you are, you can still not get the apartment because of their own bias, their own judgment. That's still happening in a place like Seattle. Imagine where else that's happening and worse? Because here there are rules and infractions for it, however there's no way to really track those things.

So that leaves our community even more at higher risk for houselessness. And let's not forget the fact that houselessness and just existing and being us, our mental health doesn't feel stable. It doesn't feel secure. How can you be right mentally not knowing where you're going to stay? Having a question of whether you're going to be okay to walk out in these streets today or not. And then, if you're not, what's going to happen because you have nowhere to go?

Ariyah: What is your hope for Housing Justice in the year 2024?

Bri'a: My hope for Housing Justice is very large, but right now my hope for Housing Justice and Housing Justice specifically for QT2s BIPOC community is that we don't have to operate in survival mode. We don't have to live in hopelessness. Just like there's places for everyone else here, that there are spaces dedicated to us. Not just here in Seattle, not just in Washington, but throughout the country. I'm hoping that we can create a model and show that it does work and it does help with our communities.

Every level of life that we can reach, I feel like will be that much more attainable knowing that we have somewhere to look to. Because at this point, this is going to be the prototype, and that's not okay. This has been going on forever. Well, it's more than the idea now because, we have at it's here. My hope and dreams is that this goes on beyond Seattle. I hope that we spread this and are able to share this model of how we are doing things here and actually get information from other folks who have tried to do things similar. And just really have our community be out of survival mode, out of hopelessness, and thriving and living. Because, and I'm going to tie it back in with the sustainability and be interconnected and interpersonal with different dimensions of community inside of our community and out.

Ariyah: If I may add one piece for the mental piece because I couldn't have said nothing about Housing Justice. That was good, girl. But if I could add one piece of the mental piece is, that I know that... I feel like I do speak freely, I know our organization when I say that, the work that we want to do is to create safe spaces for our community so that people can come in as vulnerable and as broken as they are, but that they can leave having what they need to be okay. And to put them on the right track to really be okay.

Bri'a: Exactly. To not just be okay…..

Ariyah: But to be well. And to live well. Because we deserve those things.

Bri'a: At least at the bare minimum.

Ariyah: And that's the bare minimum of what we deserve. And I think that once we get people into safe housing practices, then we can get them on adherence when it comes to their hormone practices. We can get them in with therapists and psychiatrists and get them with health advisors that can talk them through what they need for gender affirming care. We can get people to have conversations about sexual health. So we can take these numbers away that are making Black trans women just as susceptible to HIV in higher proportions than other demographics, if we're going to keep it real. You know what I mean?

This is how we start that work. There is so much more attached to our homelessness than just where we lay our heads. However, it's an important piece. If I can get you somewhere safe to lay your head, we can do some work to change your life.

Bri'a: Amen.

Ariyah: My name is Ariyah Janae.

Bri'a: And I'm Bri'a Love.

Ariyah: And we are from the Housing Justice Department at LRP. Until next time, baby.

Bri'a: Deuces.

Ariyah: Deuces.