On Monday, January 26, 2026, a five-and-a-half-year-old named Truth visited the state capitol for the first time with her mother, Danisha. The two made the trip to Housing & Homelessness Advocacy Day (HHAD) on the Coalition’s Nancy Amidei Advocacy Express bus.
“I just got word and jumped on the bus,” Danisha said when we met for coffee two weeks after our visit to Olympia.
Danisha has been subscribed to Coalition emails for years. She’s worked in social services for the past decade and is currently a graduate student at the UW School of Social Work. She’s been a shelter counselor at DESC and Compass Housing Alliance and a housing advocate—helping people find housing, navigate resources, and communicate with landlords—at Neighborhood House, all Coalition member organizations.
While working to find stability for others in our regional system of housing and care, Danisha said she was always one check away from being in shelters herself.
“The housing policy change that has happened over the last five to six years has made the world of difference in my life.”
“We’ve been through the ringer with housing,” Danisha said. She and her family went through the shelter system when Danisha was young. By age 13, Danisha had lost both her parents and was living with relatives. She never had a formal guardianship and was unable to access any of the foster care resources for kids who age out.
“I just kind of turned 18 and just kept going in life,” she said.
Right now, Danisha pays $2,150 in housing expenses for a two-bedroom apartment in Seattle for her and Truth.
“It’s not even one of these new ones where you have a gym, and a roof top, and a little grill,” she said.
Eight years ago, Danisha lived with her two siblings in a five-bedroom house with two bathrooms, a front yard, and a backyard. They paid $2,150 in rent. The house was in the same ZIP code she currently rents in, the two properties just five or six blocks away from each other.
“The rent has done something ridiculous,” she said. That’s why she wants her lawmakers to invest in realistically affordable homes.
“I was so excited to find out that it actually works, and that there’s a human being looking at those emails.”
Her current housing expenses take up about half her income.
“It’s not affordable for most of us,” she said. “It may be affordable for people that they want to attract into the area, but it’s not affordable.”
Recently, Truth’s father experienced homelessness. Danisha used her firsthand and extensive experience with the housing and care system to help him navigate waitlists and case managers.
“We tried so many things,” she said. “But they have so many people in their caseload.”
Danisha explained all this to Truth: “Your dad once almost died because he slept under a truck when it was cold,” she said. “This is the reality when lawmakers aren’t doing enough to make sure everybody has a home.”
So, Danisha and Truth joined nearly 20 neighbors from their legislative district at a meeting with their state lawmakers on Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day. Danisha, with Truth sharing her chair, told their story.
“Oh my god, I loved it so much,” Danisha said of her lawmaker meetings. “This is part of the process that actually is impactful.”
Danisha first saw how collective action impacts decision makers while working as a legislative intern for Senator Hasegawa two years ago. It was her job to count the emails the Senator’s office received about a certain topic, to make sure those voices were counted.
“Those numbers were reported directly to my Senator once a week or sometimes twice a week,” she said. Even the form emails, the ones copied and pasted, those counted too.
“I was so excited to find out that it actually works, and that there’s a human being looking at those emails,” Danisha said. “More people need to just know that even those little things count.”
Lots of little things—simple, easy, quick actions taken by lots of people—have added up to really count for Danisha.
“The housing policy change that has happened over the last five to six years has made the world of difference in my life,” she shared.
“It should feel familiar to all of us. It’s our space, where we belong.”
Specifically, she talked about the rent stabilization bill that passed last session, a Seattle City Ordinance passed in 2023 that limits late fees on rent payments to $10, and a state law passed in 2020 that allows tenants to pay deposits, nonrefundable fees, and last month’s rent in installments.
“I’ve actually gotten to see the policy change happen in real time and impact me,” Danisha said. “And really make my life better.”
As for Truth, she loved her first Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day experience. “She was telling everybody about it,” Danisha shared.
Danisha said taking Truth to Olympia was one way to help her understand her role in things and the power she has. It was an opportunity to teach Truth the language she needs to feel comfortable. Comfortable reaching out, speaking up, comfortable being in a big, tall building with marble statues, lawmakers milling about.
“I want to normalize it. I want it to feel familiar to her and not foreign to her because it should feel familiar to her. It should feel familiar to all of us. It’s our space, where we belong.”
We are grateful to have been able to bring Danisha and Truth to Olympia for Housing & Homelessness Advocacy Day this year aboard our Nancy Amidei Advocacy Express bus. A special thanks to our bus sponsors for helping us get our wheels on the road:
