Washington State Lived Experience Coalition
Housing justice · King County, Washington
The Washington State Lived Experience Coalition is a Black-, Brown-, and Indigenous-led multiracial coalition of people who have lived through homelessness and housing insecurity, organized so that the people closest to the problem have a real say in the solution. I have been a member since 2022.
Those closest to the problem are closest to the solutions, but furthest from power and resources.
A founding principle of the Lived Experience CoalitionWhat the coalition organizes around
Housing is a human right
Not a reward for good behavior, and not something a person has to earn back after losing it.
Leadership from lived experience
Members who have experienced homelessness are developed into leaders, not just invited to tell their stories and then sent home.
Anti-racist by design
The coalition was founded on anti-racist and anti-oppression organizing principles, and centers Black, Brown, and Indigenous leadership.
Barriers don't arrive one at a time
Homelessness overlaps with the justice system, with trauma, and with fleeing violence. The organizing has to work across all of it at once.
How I came to this work
I have my own experience with homelessness. What it taught me is that the people who talk about homelessness are rarely the people who have been inside it — and the people who have been inside it are almost never in the room when the decisions get made.
The Lived Experience Coalition was the first group I found that was actually, genuinely trying to change that. Not describing the work. Doing it.
2022
Joined the Washington State Lived Experience Coalition. Elected to the Leadership Team.
Appointed
Selected through the coalition to represent people experiencing homelessness on the Governance Board of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority — a government-sanctioned board of politicians, city council members, and the mayor. It was quite the learning experience.
Today
I'm not as directly involved as I was in previous years, but I will always support the LEC and the KCRHA, and the reason I started has not changed.
The work - Organizing, Outreach, Education
Why this page is on a gear site
The advocacy and the storefront are the same project
Headpointe is a small, one-person outdoor shop in the Pacific Northwest. It exists to get good gear to people the outdoor industry has mostly overlooked — older hikers, beginners, and people of color — and to put tents, sleeping bags, and packs into the hands of neighbors in King County who are living outside. I did not arrive at that from a marketing plan. I arrived at it from a coalition of people who care about their community.
The Washington State Lived Experience Coalition and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority are independent organizations. This page describes Kirk McClain's personal involvement with them. Headpointe is a for-profit business and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by either organization. Purchases made here are not charitable contributions and are not tax deductible.