Do you wanna take a piece of paper and draw something. A lot of these families are
working there they want their kids to do well in school they want them to go to a
four-year college and get a degree and they're they're just like you and me.
These families are guests at the new Bethlehem Day Center. It's a place for
them to come during the day to relax, eat a meal, shower, do laundry, help the kids
with homework. It's a safe place and it's comfortable and it's especially
important because these families have no other permanent homes. Holy Family Parish
in Kirkland began envisioning the project back in 2014. They identified
homelessness as an issue to address. Volunteers reached out to other
organizations actively serving homeless populations to get ideas about the need
in the community. About the same time Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in Kirkland
created a new congregation called Salt House. Parishioners there wanted to
start a ministry in the community that would make a difference. The two groups
have teamed up with other faith-based organizations to form the new Bethlehem
project. Kim Saunders help develop the original
vision for Salt House. I really believe that those that experience begin
experiencing homelessness for a variety of reasons that they are a victim of a
broader system that is really not established well to serve them and so we
want to be a part of the solution there. This is only a small part of that.
Clearly, having a place to stay during the day a place to be to be safe to be
cared for to be seen to be acknowledged is crucial.
Natalia Pearson is the program manager at New Bethlehem. The space is for them and
we want to make sure that they feel welcomed here and we are open Sunday
through Friday 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. we provide a place for people to do their
laundry take a shower we serve a snack when we first open
and a meal around 5:30 so that kids can have snack when they got out of school
or parents gonna have a meal when they got off of work. Salt house parishioners
work with the new Bethlehem team and Catholic community services to operate
the center. Volunteers help with the day-to-day tasks. The doors opened in
November of 2016. Obviously the center is fulfilling a need.
In July of this year nine hundred guests came through the doors that's an
average of 35 individual family members a day. One of the benefits of new
Bethlehem is that we're a family shelter which means any adult with their minor
child so that can be single mom it can be a two-parent household it can be a
single dad which prior to us there wasn't really a spot for father's to go
with their kids and so we recently had a single dad come in. He was struggling
with some addiction issues but because he came here we were able to refer him
to a treatment center, get sober and work on that continuous sobriety. We were able
to get him connected with health insurance for his son who has some
special needs and refer him to a housing program. Now he's housed he was referred
to an Employment Program and is looking forward to start within the next
couple of weeks so that he can you know be able to afford the housing and
eventually maybe even earn too much income so that he can you know take the
step and get into different housing and really work on the needs of the son to
prepare him for school next year I think he'll be going to kindergarten. We know
that having a place to sort of take a breath is just a start we believe that
we need to be creating an environment and a place that is a hub for services
to this population that currently doesn't exist on the Eastside. A lot of
our guests it's their first experience into homelessness and you don't know
where to start just imagine if you were evicted or lost your housing where would
you start and so case manager is here to be able
to point people in the direction of how to get connected to the resources
whether it's food stamps medical care housing employment services so they can
come here and get refer it out to those those services that they can get back on
their feet. For many people it's not a permanent
state it's actually a point in time where they've experienced a job loss or
a medical issue that has created a situation which results in a temporary
situation of homelessness and I think we have to think about the surrounding
issues that are supporting that.
While the new Bethlehem project
is focused on getting people back on their feet it is only the
beginning for families struggling to continue on a path out of homelessness
Our goal is to build a 24/7 shelter for families with children and single women
it would be 24/7 so that the people would have a place to be all day
long so they don't have to hop around different places. I'm looking forward to
having that on on the east side because at this time we send them all the
Seattle because there is no place that has a 24/7 shelter on the east side not
for the families not for singles well Sophia Way and congregations have some
small shelters but not for families. The City of Kirkland is working with a
Regional Coalition for Housing, New Bethlehem, Salt House, Catholic Community
Services and the Sophia Way to build a permanent location to shelter adult
women and families with children. The process is still in development but an
80 to 100 bed unit is planned in the meantime new Bethlehem continues to fill
an unmet need so when I think about the next step in building a building that
will be a shelter that will support this population of homeless families as well
as women's single women experiencing homelessness we they need a place we
need a place where does all the services that are necessary the sort of
wraparound services can be provided while people are in this transitional
place. Our volunteers when they leave they get to go home just like me I get
to go home and my the guest that walked through the
store don't have that luxury and so it's made really homelessness
real for me despite working with clients for years like this this has made
it real that like these are amazing people that are just currently unhoused
they definitely deserve the same respect as all of us.
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