“Everything about shelter changed during the pandemic.”
-Dan Wise, Continuous Care System Director for Catholic Community Services
Remember March 2020?
Those who follow CCSWW homelessness shelter programs know how quickly our agency had to scramble from providing overnight, congregate shelters to finding safe single-unit sites open 24/7 for our clients. We’ve continued to make changes while caring for increasing caseloads across western Washington. Last year, CCS provided 416,915 emergency bed nights for individuals and families in our shelters, hotels, and motels, an increase of 33% over 2021.
Recently, Kate Walters, a reporter at KUOW, Seattle’s local public radio station, investigated the profound, transformative impacts the epidemic continues to have on CCS and other providers in the city. Her visits to CCS sites and conversations with CCS staff and other providers reveal benefits that outweigh the burdens—but those burdens fall on the most marginalized people in our community. Read and listen to the full KUOW story here.