“Money must be a consideration,” said the drop-in visitor as she glanced around my 340-square-foot studio apartment. I was just moving into our downtown Seattle retirement community of 378 apartments (another 152 to come in five or six years). Mine is one of the smallest, least expensive. She was right. Money was a consideration, but probably not in the way she was thinking.

For years I’ve used a coin purse featuring a cartoon character pulling green dollars out of her billfold. My coin purse is so well worn that the caption is becoming unreadable, but still memorable: “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.” 

Those “mo’ problems” were a factor but not the driving motivation for giving up the home and community I loved to move here. I want to reduce my footprint on our Mother Earth as I age. I want to use fewer resources, live in community, take up less space, and spend less money to maintain house, car, etc. Not yet two months into this venture, I occasionally feel unsettled, mourning what I’ve given up, suppressing envy over larger apartments. So I go for a walk. 

From the west wing, I walk across Freeway Park, where I see two camping tents. There are no signs of life but I’m certain the tents are occupied. I walk past a man who is seated, holding a crutch, staring at nothing. He’ll still be there hours later when I return.

I enter the glass-encased Convention Center, take escalators down four floors, and I’m in the heart of downtown. Heading to Pike Place Market I notice a mummy-style sleeping bag stretched out on the sidewalk in an alcove. It appears to have a body in it. I pray that it’s a live body, though I wonder if life itself is any kind of blessing for this mummified soul. 

That same day the Seattle Times reported that both nationally and in Washington state, homelessness is “growing at a rate never seen before.” The official national count is a 12 percent increase over 2022, and in this state 11 percent. That’s based on the annual Point-In-Time Count. I helped with that count as a volunteer at the Okanogan homeless shelter. We simply recorded the number of folks sheltering on the appointed evening. Shelter populations can vary wildly depending on weather, time of month, and other factors. Nevertheless, we know that on a given night there were at least 28,000 people in Washington who had no place to be. That’s higher than the populations of Mercer Island or Moses Lake.

But those are only numbers that don’t really tell the stories — except for some stunning numbers offered the next day, again in the Times, by columnist Danny Westneat. There’s a building boom downtown. Some 7,200 living units (aka apartments) are under construction. Help for people with no homes? Not so much.

“This boomlet isn’t visible at street level,” Westneat writes. “It’s in the sky.” Once again Seattle has more construction cranes dotting the skyline — forty-five of ’em — than any other U.S. city. The columnist warns that high-rise apartments are likely to turn downtown into a “gated community … only vertical.”  He cites the example of a penthouse atop the 58-story Rainier Tower, renting for $19,999 per MONTH. 

I can’t imagine what it would feel like to drive my luxury car from the garage below my $20K-a-month apartment and spot a homeless person, wrapped in a sleeping bag in the sidewalk. It’s hard enough for me, having just left my snug studio, to walk on by, even with a prayer in my heart.

Carried away by the spirit of the season, I bought more than I intended at the Market. The walk back, with awkward packages, was a slog. Arriving home, I was more grateful than ever for a home to arrive to. Gratitude guarantees contentment. 

I’m not so naive to believe that moving into a tiny apartment or giving up my car is going to solve climate issues or homelessness or myriad other problems. But isn’t that a basic message of Christmas? Just another baby born in an insignificant town, and everything changed. It’s clear — to me, anyway — that if enough of us care a little more, live with a little less, we too can make a significant difference. That’s my prayer for 2024.