KIRKLAND, Wash. — A group of organizations serving people experiencing homelessness have found a permanent home on the Eastside.
Community partners broke ground for the new shelter in Kirkland on Wednesday.
The two-level building will serve women and children struggling with homelessness. The building will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Two organizations, the New Bethlehem Project and The Sophia Way, will move into the new building when it opens in 2020. Catholic Community Services has operated the New Bethlehem Project day center in a space in the Salt House Church. The Sophia Way will also be moving its seven-month emergency winter shelter and day center operations to the new site.
The emergency shelter and day center is projected to take a year to be completed. It will have 100 beds and will offer help in accessing medical, mental health, employment and other services. People using the shelter will not be required to be clean and sober while they are there, but they will not be allowed to bring drugs or alcohol on the property.
“What we’ve learned in trying to help people through homelessness is that they heed a stable place to anchor themselves, and then staff and volunteers to wrap around them to help with them all the struggles that they have,” Bill Hallerman, agency director of Catholic Community Services in King County, said.
The shelter will be located on land that the city purchased from Salt House Church. Last year, the annual point-in-time measurement found more than 12,000 people experiencing homelessness in King County.
“Homelessness in our communities is not Kirkland’s problem or Bellevue’s problem or any isolated city’s problem; this is our greater community,” Kirkland Mayor Penny Sweet said.