Homeless in Seattle is a Facebook page I found for an organization based in the Freemont neighborhood of Seattle.  I continue to be touched by the photos and stories posted by Rex Hohlbein and wish I could just post every single one of them on this blog as well.  But they deserve their own forum.  All I can do is call the page to your attention once in a while and encourage you to “friend” them so you, too, can hear the stories as they happen.

Photo courtesy of Rex Hohlbein Photography

We all have people that we feel fortunate in life to have met, the person that stops you in your track, causes you to look a little bit closer, inspires you, stirs something deep inside, and ultimately moves you forward in your life-journey.

On Friday I had the sincere pleasure of meeting Matthew Barrett and I can’t stop thinking about him, he is a remarkable person. His life story is hard to imagine, hard to know what to think or how to feel when you first begin to understand what he has been through, what he is still going through.

Matt has been dealing with a genetic form of cancer since the age of two. Since then he has had over 2,000 major operations. He has also been homeless for 15 years, moving in September of 2011 from Tent City 3 into low-income housing downtown Seattle.

Despite all of this life-struggle, Matt has a beautiful life-view. I would like to share the first few lines of a poem he wrote titled, “Homeless”. It goes,

Homeless does not mean helpless as some people think, we are not all lunatics or alcoholics on the brink, our lives have just been changed to a great degree, but we are still human beings if only you would see.

If you are interested in reading more of this poem or others that Matt has written, please purchase his book titled “A View from the Street.” You can purchase through the following link https://www.createspace.com/3738197or if you want an autographed copy let me know at HomelessInSeattle.

Thank you in advance for taking an interest in Matt’s life.

Downtown Seattle neighborhood | Rex

via Homeless in Seattle.