Plymouth Housing Group offers permanent supportive housing, which means we do more for our tenants than just hand them keys and maintain the building. We also have a full social services team to provide each tenant with a safety net to help ensure that they never have to experience homelessness again.

 

Each formerly homeless Plymouth tenant is assigned a Housing Case Manager—a personal advocate. We do the expected, such as providing support with mental health and addiction issues, but we also deal with a stunning, unpredictable variety of needs, worries, and passions that emerge in the lives of our clients.

I am J.J. Stein, a Case Manager for 31 of the 62 tenants at the St. Charles, a Plymouth Housing Group building that was once an opera house in Pioneer Square. In the course of trying to find ways to make a difference in the lives of 31 screamingly unique individuals, I have found myself working as a life coach, a chauffeur, a paralegal, a concierge, a dorm RA, a professional organizer, and an event planner.

 

This variety of tasks is something I adore about my job. Here are some notes I kept for a couple of weeks about our challenges and adventures:

–During an assessment, I learned that a tenant was interested in exploring his Native American background. We spent half an hour deep in genealogical research. I provided him a printout out of findings, and we made an appointment for next week to continue this research.

–A tenant was incarcerated for a non-violent offense. I visited her in jail in Kent, found a temporary home for her cat, and testified in court to support her case.

–I helped a tenant compose and mail a letter to his mother and family in Oregon. It was an incredibly sweet letter, and he obviously has fond memories of his family of origin. He included the words “I love you” seven times within a short, three-paragraph letter.

–I discovered that a tenant used to be a professional leatherworker thirty years ago, making high-end jackets and wallets in San Francisco. With the support of the Plymouth resource development team, I contacted a Seattle-area leather store and requested a donation. They were able to provide him with $80 worth of tools and a small bag of leather to work with. He began making pouches as gifts for other residents and staff members.

–I assisted a tenant with moving his belongings into independent housing obtained through a Section 8 voucher lottery. We discussed the positive benefits and the potential challenges of non-supportive housing. He was excited to give it a try, after having lived at the St. Charles for four years.

–A tenant passed away. I contacted the authorities, phoned his relatives and went through his possessions to procure important paperwork. I supported other tenants with their grieving and planned a memorial event to celebrate his life.

–I discussed the curriculum of an anger management class a tenant was enrolled in. I had a serious conversation with another tenant about the danger of throwing DVDs out of a third-story window. I requested that he sign a statement saying he understood our conversation. I returned the fallen DVDs to the tenant.

–A tenant was informed that he would stop receiving his Social Security benefits at the end of the month. I spent 8+ hours over three days working with the tenant to straighten it out. I helped with phone calls to Social Security, two trips to the Social Security office, one trip to the DSHS office, and countless emails, faxes and forms. It turns out the issue wasn’t the tenant’s fault at all.

–A tenant came to me wanting dating advice. He split up with his wife more than ten years ago, and it had been three decades since he had last been on a “date.”

–I had tea with a tenant on her birthday. She said I was the only person in the world who remembered it was her birthday. After tea I let a few other tenants and staff members know and encouraged them to wish her a happy birthday (I think she knew that I did this).