Mary's Place

Our grantee partner Mary’s Place has been focused on ending homelessness for women and families in Seattle since 1999, with the primary goal of ensuring no child sleeps outside in their community. Their long history of innovation in this complex problem area has resulted in significant impact and depth of understanding. What started as a series of short-term shelters, through a system of participating churches and repurposing temporarily vacant buildings, became a three-pronged approach to tackling the homelessness cycle.

There are three points of crisis in the cycle; those living in tents or cars, those in shelters trying to transition back to being housed, and those about to lose their home from being behind in their rent. The problem is entrenched and closely aligned with systemic racial injustice; 88% of their clients identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. Understanding the full cycle of homelessness and relapse is critical to creating system-wide solutions that aren’t just treating the resulting symptoms.

The first prong of their approach is their shelters, which have changed considerably over the years, based on multiple surveys and conversations with those they serve. Initially, they used a nomadic model of rapidly converting temporarily untenanted buildings into congregate shelters. This provided quick shelter options but required many labour intensive moves to the temporarily available buildings. The housing crisis of 2008-2010 created a massive influx of women with children seeking shelter beyond the available bed count, prompting Mary’s Place to create, over the next decade and thanks to funding from multiple sources, two permanent shelters and one based out of a converted hotel. 

Critically, these shelters are not congregate; they offer private rooms with doors. Not only does this help families feel safe, it gives them a place to keep their belongings. Typical congregate living requires residents to leave each morning, with the constant risk they won’t get back in the next night as there are many more people than beds available. Taking their belongings with them each day makes working or looking for work more challenging, and there’s no way to make or store food for themselves. Mary’s Place gives their shelter residents a secure roof for themselves and their things.

The second prong of their approach is their Outreach Program, for families living in a car or tent. This is sometimes a more secure alternative for those with children, if their only shelter option is in a congregate setting, or if behavioural health or other issues mean they are not shelter candidates. The Mary’s Place family shelter system is so overburdened with need, they have to turn away around 50 families a night. Outreach allows families to transition from unsheltered homelessness to housing with flexible financial assistance for move-in costs, thereby completely circumventing the shelter system. Through conversations with the unhoused families, the Mary’s Place team seeks to identify the family’s most immediate needs and barriers to housing.They then develop a plan, led by the family, to support their housing goals.

While working towards being housed, Mary’s Place offers families with children a day center where they can take showers, and get food, hygiene products, and assistance with skills training and job seeking through partnerships with other agencies. The center brings together the many pieces needed to successfully leave the cycle of homelessness, including funding to help with rent and pay for moving expenses.

As these programs evolved, Mary’s Place could see that it was necessary to move upstream in the cycle, to prevent housed families from losing their homes in the first place. With learnings from Santa Clara County’s Destination: Home program and research, they began to implement a similar eviction prevention model to keep at-risk families in their homes. A further 4-year study in collaboration with Notre Dame University, along with other research throughout the US, amply demonstrates the value proposition of funding families to maintain a secure roof over their heads. This is not only because it reduces the number of people entering the homeless cycle, with its greater care cost as well as trauma for those involved. It can also disrupt a cycle of housing instability for the adults and their children. According to Miriam Clithero, Prevention and Stability Director for Mary’s Place, “Those who have been homeless once are many times more likely to find themselves there again.” By keeping children housed, the odds are increased that they’ll remain so in their adult lives.

Prevention is where The Patchwork Collective’s grant came in. $5 million over 6 years is going exclusively to direct client assistance for families to remain in their homes, although the grant was given without restrictions regarding how Mary’s Place deployed it. They created a proposal and the funds were given based on their assessments and proven track record, without any additional documentation.

“When agencies have the trust of a donor, they’re able to work so much faster,” says Miriam. “We’re able to meet families where they’re at and give them what they need. One of our recipients told us how relieved she is to no longer feel shame when she runs into her property manager. That essential human dignity is part of how we define success.” Mary’s Place is not short on impressive statistics, but their more powerful feedback tool comes in the form of quantitative and qualitative surveys from their clients. “If you don’t listen to the people closest to the pain you’re trying to disrupt, you won’t get at the multiple causes behind it,” says Miriam. Mary’s Place now has nine months of data with a benchmark of 90% of their clients feeling well served – essential to ensuring they remain engaged in the programs.

The central focus of their work is meeting core human needs. As Miriam puts it, “We’re working to restore hope and allow families to dream, even a little bit, of a better life. The possibility of dreaming that things could improve shouldn’t be a privilege. Those of us who have it need to help others feel it too.”

We couldn’t agree more.

‍