Advocacy is central to our work, and you can help 🏘️
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July 2023
- DESC Post-Legislative update
- Save Oct. 20
- Our staff members save lives
- Thank you, volunteers
Advocate: watch our post-Legislative update to learn more
Advocacy is central to DESC’s work
“Over the years advocacy around policy and public investment to address homelessness and to address the needs of people living with serious and persistent behavioral health conditions has been central to our work,” says DESC Deputy Director for Strategy Nicole Macri. “At the core, DESC is a service organization serving direct client need, but from our very founding–we were founded due to the advocacy of community members and that legacy of advocacy and trying to actually help be a central agent in organizing around advocacy–has been a key part of our organizational identity.”
Watch the video for more insight into DESC and the Legislature.
Save the date! Gimme Shelter, 8 p.m., Oct. 20
Save 8 p.m., Oct. 20, 2023, for DESC’s 15th Annual Gimme Shelter, a benefit concert to end homelessness. Celebrate with DESC and Billy Joe Huels and the Dusty 45s Live, at Seattle’s Century Ballroom. Watch for more to come--including a powerful Crisis Response Program Spotlight and Swing Dance Lessons!
Our staff members save lives
As people continue to overdose on drugs at high rates in King County, DESC staff are doing heroic work to keep our tenants and clients alive.
DESC's compassionate and dedicated staff play a crucial role in providing care and support to our tenants, who are often already in fragile health, up to and including end of life stages. It is heart-wrenching for our staff to experience the loss of individuals they know and love, or to discover that they have died elsewhere.
Now more overdose deaths are taking an additional toll on our staff and tenants.
Our staff are committed to saving lives, regularly responding to and reversing overdoses both in and outside of our facilities, and DESC is looking at all of the ways we can support our colleagues in this vitally important work.
How DESC is acting to address the overdose crisis and save more lives:
- For years we have supplied Narcan to staff in all of our facilities.
- We are streamlining procedures to clearly tell staff how they can get Narcan for their clients/tenants/guests.
- Staff created, and are distributing to clients, a pamphlet on recognizing and responding to overdoses.
- We are working with local officials and opioid use disorder experts to stand up rapid support programs for people post-overdose. (Watch for more information to come on this.)
- We are strengthening the process for acquiring harm reduction supplies.
- We are updating relevant staff trainings and pushing out information.
- We are creating better tracking systems to aid in overdose prevention, such as knowing if individuals have or need Narcan, who has overdosed and what kind of follow-up there was.
Volunteers add something special
Saying thank you!
Amazon employees got together at their Bellevue campus in April to create thank you cards for our supporters and move in kit cards for our tenants.
Welcome home!
This group from Microsoft gathered at their Redmond campus on April 28 to create "welcome home" cards to go with move-in kits for tenants newly moving into their own apartments.
Keeping us organized
Our donated items are organized and we have a new supply of move-in kits thanks to this group from Microsoft who spent May 12 at our donation center.
A new address for donations!
Do you prefer mailing a check when you donate to DESC? If so, we have changed that particular mailing address. Send a check (payable to DESC) to:
DESC Fund Development
PO Box 4607
Seattle, WA 98194
And thank you for helping us in our mission to end homelessness!
DESC in the news
City of Seattle Announces $147M in Funding for Affordable Housing. The Office of Housing’s at Home Blog. DESC’s 15th Avenue West is one of the projects to receive funding.
Commerce commits $83.5 million to address homelessness through affordable housing construction. Lynnwood Times. DESC’s 15th Avenue West will receive about $7.7 million from the Office of Apple Health and Homes and Washington State Department of Commerce’s Multifamily Housing Unit.
King County and Dallas County leaders make charitable wager ahead of Kraken – Stars Game 7. King County Executive Dow Constantine and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins each chose a charity in their city. Had the Kraken won, the Dallas executive would have made a $1,000 donation to DESC! Despite the loss, it was exciting that Exec Constantine chose DESC as the potential recipient.
2023 Health Equity Conference “Improving Care for Unhoused Patients.” Recording from the conference. Nancy Connolly, M.D., M.P.H, Harborview Primary Care at The Clinic at Hobson Place, speaks about the main cause of homelessness—affordability/availability of housing. Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility also shared Homelessness: Myth vs. Fact!
AGC2023 Build Washington Awards. DJC.com. Hobson Place South wins the 2023 Construction Excellence Award in the Private Building $20 -$50 million category at the Associated General Contractors of Washington (AGC) 2023 Build Washington Awards, which recognize members’ top projects, programs and people over the past year.
The North Star takes top prize in Gold Nugget Awards. Chosen by a panel of top creative, successful designers, planners and builders from a competitive field of 640 entries, The North Star won in the Best Supportive/Transitional Housing group.
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.
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