If I had $25,000 cash to donate to one Seattle-area non-profit, I would choose to make the donation to Mary’s Place. One of our area’s greatest social issues is homelessness and though we do have a number of organizations and social services available to help, the political structures, underfunding, and a confluence of other intersected issues continue to make this an issue that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. When I was in college, I worked at a campus ministry that often partnered with ROOTS, another Seattle-based nonprofit that provides services for homeless youth and young adults. We volunteered there regularly by making meals, sitting down and talking with youth, and cleaning up. Eventually we got to know many of them personally and learned their individual stories. I’ve seen up close, the multitudes’ of complicated factors that can lead a person into living on the streets, as well as the dangers of it.
ROOTS was the place that taught me about the real experiences of people on the streets, the services that are available to them in this area, and how effective (and sometimes ineffective) they are. ROOTS is an emergency shelter with staffed social workers who area available to help young people who are looking to start the process of integrating back into society. The issue with the services this location provides is that they can only serve youth who are under the age of 21. Once they reach 21, they have to find other locations to receive emergency shelter services and can no longer work with the social workers and staff who they may have come to know and trust.
Mary’s place is an organization that offers emergency shelter, meals, and more for adults and their children, and assist a number of other Seattle -area shelters in food preparation and delivery. Their business provides medical services, classes, education, employment placement and counseling, housing placement, in addition to their emergency services. They even offer a mobile team that brings meals and medical services to families who cannot make it into a shelter for the night. They take a holistic approach combating multiple factors that affect families that are struggling with homelessness.
Currently they are working on projects to build more affordable housing units and another new shelter facility in Burien. They continue to reach their sights further to help more people. I would love to support the good work that they are doing.