David's Corner

Last week, I had a Zoom meeting with Washington State Representative Tina Orwall to update her on LCSNW’s affiliation with Compass. Chief Development Officer Elliot Stockstad was also on the call, along with Compass Director of Advancement Liz Jarrard and COO Christopher Ross. Rep. Orwall has her MSW and more than 20 years of working in the public mental health system. As a legislator for the last 10+ years, her areas of focus have been housing affordability, sexual assault victims and trafficked youth, and suicide prevention. In other words, she cares about the very work we are doing in the community. We talked about the need to protect and expand behavioral health, which saw cuts during the Great Recession and hasn’t fully recovered, as well as the connection between supportive housing services and improved health outcomes. The conversation finished with an invitation to keep the lines of communication open. And this week we spoke with North Puget Sound donors along with NPS District...

Happy Friday everyone.    This week, our friends at Compass Housing Alliance opened a COVID-19-safe shelter (their preferred term is “enhanced emergency   housing”) for those experiencing homelessness in the   Seattle area. They remodeled four floors of their existing Compass Center building to create 150 individual living spaces that meet COVID-19 safety protocols, including at least six feet of separation and solid walls between living spaces, individual storage lockers, upgraded showers and restrooms, and an improved air system. They’ve named the shelter “Otto’s Place” after Compass Founder Pastor Otto Karlstrom.   On other floors of the Center, Compass offers housing navigation services, showers and restrooms,   medical care, banking, and mail services--the only trauma-informed banking and mail program of its kind in the U.S.   Otto’s Place replaces Compass’s First Presbyterian shelter program, ahead of its lease ending at the end of the year....