Speak up for Housing First 🏘️
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March 2023
Topics to talk about:
- Housing First
- 2023 FMR
- Root causes of homelessness
- Federal funding aid
- Hygiene kits
Housing First policies, affordable housing and health care make the community better. You can act to support DESC's efforts: educate, advocate, donate, volunteer, attend an event or join our staff.
Speak up for Housing First - here's the information for a conversation
Housing First benefits the whole community
Housing First is a cornerstone of DESC philosophy because our experience, backed by research, shows it is most helpful and most cost-effective for people experiencing homelessness along with substance use disorder, mental illness and other disabling conditions.
Housing First doesn’t mean “housing only.” It means, “come inside, feel comfort, privacy, and support so you have the foundation you need to pursue your goals and reconnect to the life of the community.”
Many critics believe that housing must be earned through prior completion of treatment for substance use disorder, mental illness or other conditions. But requiring treatment participation before housing simply prolongs suffering, allows medical and psychiatric conditions to worsen and produces more chaos on the street...Continue reading
Know how your tax dollars can benefit our clients
Rep. Jayapal hears how federal funding will improve Kerner-Scott House
We welcomed U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) to Kerner-Scott House on Feb. 22. Rep. Jayapal secured $985,000 for Safety, Health, and Hygiene Upgrades at Kerner-Scott House, and we wanted to show her how that funding will improve the 26-year-old building for our clients...Continue reading
Support affordable housing - numbers worth talking about
2023 rents for smallest apartments way out of reach of SSI recipients
People living on federal disability benefits are priced way out of the private rental market for the smallest apartments in the Seattle-Bellevue metro area, and it only gets worse every year.
With the gap between monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI)* benefits and monthly Fair Market Rents (FMR)** wider than ever in 2023, it’s no wonder that so many people find themselves experiencing homelessness...Continue reading
Watch and share this video with your community
What are the root causes of homelessness in King County?
Used with permission of King County TV
Help spread health and hygiene
Amazon & Clean the World team up to deliver hygiene kits
If you are housed, you probably don't worry about whether you'll be able to scrub your dirty hands, take a shower, wash your hair or brush your teeth.
If you're living on the street, that routine hygiene is a luxury. And along with the chaos, indignity and discomfort, you're vulnerable to every germ and virus that comes along.
Hygiene kits can help. This month DESC is grateful for the generosity of local Amazon employees who have teamed up with Clean the World to assemble, donate and deliver 1,500 hygiene kits.
The kits will be a huge help to our DESC staff, including our outreach teams and responders, as they provide this essential resource to our community.
Each kit contains one each: plastic bag, bar of soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, sanitizer wipe, bottle of hand sanitizer, notecard and a pair of socks.
You can help provide essential resources, too, by donating here.
Above, Amazon employees prepared this pallet of hygiene kits for DESC.
Below, Amazon employees volunteered to make cards during the 2022 holiday season.
Stay informed on media coverage
DESC in the news
Where did King County’s mental health beds go? Seattle Times. The Seattle Times estimates about 548 beds were available countywide in the 1990s, with about 261 available today. Daniel Malone is quoted in the story.
As Downtown recovers, Seattle reimagines what it could be. Crosscut. DESC is mentioned as being among a group of service providers that “launched a new concerted outreach project on Third to help people exit the illicit economy.”
King County announces $24.67 million in affordable housing funding for construction, preservation, and acquisition of nearly 1,000 housing units throughout King County. King County press release. DESC’s 15th Avenue West project is one of eight projects to receive funding.
King County Council votes to put tax funding crisis centers on April ballot. Seattle Times. This levy would raise $1.25 billion over nine years through property tax assessments for five 24/7 walk-in crisis care centers around the county, supplementing DESC’s Crisis Solutions Center as the only current voluntary crisis center in King County, but which requires a referral from police or EMS, Mobile Crisis Team or hospitals.
- Homeless services could face cuts in WA's 2023 legislative session. Crosscut. Legislators and the governor are prioritizing affordable housing and homelessness this session, but funding for services, improving worker wages and fixing holes in the safety net are all necessary to progress and to keep from sliding backward. Nicole Macri is quoted in this story.
- People who face both mental illness, addiction are arrested at higher rates. Seattle Times. DESC’s Rick Deluga is interviewed as part of the story.
- New plan for tackling homelessness has big goals and a huge price tag. KUOW. Daniel Malone is interviewed for this story on the KCRHA’s new five-year draft plan. "It's really hard right now, " Malone says. "It's always been hard. But some things have really dialed up in intensity in recent years."
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