Celebrate 100 new homes at The North Star, and DESC opens more emergency housing
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July 2022
Save July 21 for The North Star opening!
Please join us to celebrate the opening of DESC’s The North Star, on Thursday, July 21, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., at 924 N. 143rd Street, Seattle, WA 98133.
This permanent supportive housing project will provide 100 adults experiencing homelessness a place to call home, with the supports and services they need to thrive.
Come hear from Seattle and King County officials, follow the self-guided tour of the building and learn more about DESC’s programming across the city.
Masks are required during the indoor portion of the event, and please note parking around the building is limited.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Pandemic lessons learned, HTH Northgate emergency housing opens
Our guests have arrived! On Thursday, June 23, hardworking DESC staff welcomed our guests back to Seattle and to their new emergency housing at Health Through Housing (HTH) Northgate. They worked tirelessly to ensure that 120 guests could move from their Renton temporary housing in eight hours. HTH Northgate is located at 13300 Stone Ave N, Seattle.
When the pandemic began, we turned on a dime to move clients from our packed congregate main shelter on Third Avenue to the former Renton Red Lion Inn, which King County was leasing from its owners. With HTH Northgate open, those guests are finally moved into hotel emergency housing.
It's not permanent, but it's not time-limited, either. Our guests can stay and stabilize to work on their individual goals as they seek or await permanent housing. The facility, the former Extended Stay America, has room for 135 guests in 115 units, with 20 rooms reserved for double occupancy, and 24/7 on-site staff support.
King County Executive Dow Constantine held a press conference along with Dept. of Community and Human Services Director Leo Flor and DESC on June 21 to open the facility and talk about the HTH program.
Above is a short clip from Director of Housing Programs Noah Fay on how DESC applied lessons learned from the pandemic to major improvements in the way we offer shelter, thanks to King County's Health Through Housing program. Learn more about this facility and watch another short video here.
This is DESC's second HTH emergency supportive housing to open within the past eight months, as the Mary Pilgrim Inn opened at the end of October 2021.
Equip a home at The North Star
We need your help to make our 100 incoming residents of The North Star feel at home in their apartments right away!
Bedding, kitchen, bathroom supplies and other items transform empty apartments into comfortable homes. With your donations we can buy these household goods that are essential to easing our clients’ transition into their new permanent homes, and we are so grateful for your support in making them feel at home. You can choose to donate and help set up an apartment (adopt an apartment) or donate and a volunteer will do the setup (sponsor an apartment).
Read more and donate at the button below.
Thank you to all of our volunteers!
Many wonderful volunteers have helped at DESC over the past couple of months.
Thank you, Elks National Foundation, for your help at our donation center last month! This awesome group of scholarship recipients came together to provide community service to organizations in need, and we are grateful for their support in sorting donated items and reorganizing our storage spaces.
Thank you so much to all of the volunteers who participated in One Seattle Day of Service on May 21, sorting donations and helping us organize our donation center! Your support means so much to us, and your commitment to our community means we can provide more resources to those in need.
And thank you to our Bush School volunteers! The Bush School helps throughout the year, and has a club focused on supporting homelessness organizations. In May we were grateful for help from our intern from Bush (on the left below), who with two schoolmates helped us clean the kitchen and pantry spaces at the Union. Students also adopted and set up an apartment at Hobson Place 2 earlier this year, hosted a clothing and sock drive at school and dropped off those donations in mid-June!
Thank you for attending Lunch Date with DESC
Lunch Date with DESC was fun, inspiring and informative, as we learned how people have made the best of a bad situation during the pandemic--turning lemons into lemonade.
Thank you for attending our first in-person event in two years on June 7. Lunch with DESC, "Lemons to Lemonade," was worth the wait.
Our DESC Board Trustee Nina Maisterra, M.D., interviewed keynote speaker Helen Chu, M.D. She spoke about her team's scientific work at the beginning of the pandemic to detect how far COVID had already spread in our community.
Rose Montoya was our inspiring and charming hostess for the event. DESC Executive Director Daniel Malone talked about the opportunities for change among the huge challenges of the past years.
Create for good! Impact Short Film Festival submissions due Aug. 15
Whether you're a beginning filmmaker or a veteran, DESC wants your short films! After holding an exciting virtual first film festival last year, we're really looking forward to this year's submissions.
Submit your films from now until Aug. 15, 2022. They must be no longer than 10 minutes, and the theme must be about making an impact on those experiencing homelessness.
Submit your film and get lots more information here.
Last year’s inaugural festival showcased 14 finalist films from 12 different countries, with the winning entries submitted from filmmakers in Pakistan and Texas. Viewers choose the winners of the four cash prizes.
We’ll hold the Impact Film Festival in person at the Ark Lodge Cinema on Sept. 22, and a virtual screening on Sept. 23.
Four cash prizes for films
- The Youth Award (for filmmakers under 18 years old), with a cash prize of $500
- The Compassion Award, $500 prize
- The Social Justice award, $500 prize
- The Impact Award, $1,000 grand prize
Come work for DESC! We have openings
