It was a triumph of justice in the face of a personal tragedy. Last week, the Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR) took action to prevent Jennifer Howlett's landlord from evicting her. The agency ruled that the 42-year-old Capitol Hill resident, gravely ill with terminal colon cancer, had been evicted from her apartment because she was dying.
The SOCR determined that landlord Jean Whinihan had discriminated against Howlett due to her illness just as Whinihan's court action to evict her was set to go to trial. In the settlement, Whinihan was required to pay $2,000 to Howlett and guarantee her the right to remain in her apartment throughout her illness. The agreement spared Whinihan a likely $20,000 judgment had the case gone to a hearing examiner and required her to attend a fair housing seminar.
For Howlett, the decision puts to an end an emotional and physical ordeal that distracted her from tending to her health and left her drained and exhausted.
There is no soft and gentle way to tell Howlett's story.
On April 27 of last year, following nine months of painful symptoms and medical examinations, the 42-year-old Howlett was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. Worse still, the cancer had spread to her liver, lungs and bones. While radiation and chemotherapy helped alleviate some of the symptoms, doctors told her she had between two and seven months to live.
One year later she's beaten those odds. But while she will be starting a new regime of chemotherapy next week, the chance of ultimate success diminish with each round of treatment. Howlett is realistic in her personal assessment of her condition.
"Unless a miracle happens, there's really no hope for me surviving this," she said. "It's the worst stage, and it's spread throughout my body."
Howlett has lived at 303 Harvard Avenue East for more than two years. In early January she moved from the first to the second floor because her landlord said the apartment was needed as her personal office. Given the seriousness of her illness the move upstairs was extremely difficult and exhausting.
Less than a month later, on February 3, there was another surprise:
"She served me with a 20-day notice to leave. I couldn't believe it. It nearly killed me to move up here. My god, I only have probably a few months left to live. It would have taken me every bit of the rest of my life to [move]. I felt suicidal, that I couldn't fight this. Talk about being kicked when you're down. This has been awful."
Howlett didn't know what to do. She knew she didn't have the energy to move a second time. She knew also how difficult it would be for a seriously ill cancer patient who receives rental assistance to locate another apartment.
"The idea of moving was terrifying. Where would I go?" Howlett said.
Despite being physically weakened from cancer and its treatment, Howlett summoned the energy to fight her landlord's action.
"I felt in my heart that this was wrong and felt there must be a law against this. I knew somehow that this was discrimination," Howlett said.
Members of her cancer support group told her that fighting her landlord would prove futile. But despite having virtually no experience navigating through official bureaucracy she found a state agency that helped in cases such as hers. They referred her to the SOCR in early March, which took her case on and expedited its handling.
Discrimination cases are notoriously difficult to prove. In this case, Whinihan's mouth may ultimately have gotten the worst of her. Several witnesses, from Howlett's sister to her medical case worker, said that Whinihan had told them that she wanted Howlett out because she was so sick. That evidence was instrumental in the SOCR responding to the case so quickly and taking such prompt action.
"She told my sister 'I can't have her dying in my building,'" Howlett said. "She told my caregiver that this was not a matter of heart but of business. I still can't believe a person would do something like that."
Howlett was born in upstate New York, moved to New York City after high school and graduated with a degree in theater and film and a minor in art history. Working in jobs ranging from film production to bartending to accounts payable and receivable, she lived later in Connecticut and San Francisco. She moved to Seattle in 1993 after her mother died. Her mother had lived here and had wanted Howlett to relocate to the city for several years.
"I liked Seattle right away. It felt like a giant family here," she said.
Her passions include writing, painting and playing music. She describes herself as "way on the liberal side" and recounts dressing up as the Grim Reaper during last year's presidential race with a sign that read "A vote for Bush is a vote for me."
Along with her friends and family Howlett feels a great deal of relief that the ordeal is over. She didn't think she could handle the rigors of a trial. She said the victory is important because it shows that seriously ill people cannot be discriminated against and that the system can work in their favor.
The settlement money is nice, she said, but isn't really the point. She'll use some of the money for living expenses and donate a portion to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
"It's not a matter of money," she said. "What is money to a person who's dying? But I love animals so much. This is important to me. I'm very worried about what will happen to my cat after I'm gone."
Howlett is weary from the experience. But now, freed from worrying about where she will live, she's glad she can now make a few plans. She intends to take a trip to Canada soon, then Oregon.
"I want to see some nice nature," she said. "This is a burden lifted from me. Everything had been on hold. This gives me a little hope. I don't feel quite so condemned."
Doug Schwartz is the editor of the Capitol Hill Times. He can be reached at editor @ capitolhilltimes.com or 461-1308.
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