New Streets to Home program: Streets to Home outreach workers are part of our Out of the Rain program. Workers are out in communities addressing people’s most urgent, pressing obstacles to getting off the street. For one family of four, it meant first and last months’ rent while the mom worked and covered the rest. For another couple, it meant getting the husband a union card and tools so he could put his skills to real use. For someone else, it’s a simple mechanical fix for their car that enables them to get back to work.
Built-in safeguards, including the fact that funds must go to service vendors and not directly to individuals, means outreach workers can apply money in inventive ways to help people in their own, unique circumstance.

Veterans homelessness: In January 2015, 1,100 vets were on the streets. With renewed focus on getting veterans off the streets and donors propelling us forward, our community made huge progress—and that number is now under 400.

To keep this up, United Way invests in programs that help veterans access food, housing and jobs. In just two years, our Veterans Employment Project has helped 155 vets access jobs and 43 vets move from homelessness into housing.

State of emergency: When someone is homeless, it is a personal crisis. It’s also a community crisis. Something isn’t lining up. Something is happening to create homelessness in the Puget Sound region.

With 3,000 people becoming newly homeless each month, we can’t go on with business as usual. That’s why we work to get people Out of the Rain now, as well as work on the back story—like what’s causing long-term/chronic homelessness and youth homelessness.

We stand with the City of Seattle in Mayor Murray’s declaring homelessness a state of emergency in Seattle and King County. Thank you for standing with us.