There will be a significant change in how Bread & Roses serves the community in the coming year. This letter describes our new direction and the reasons for the change. Please take a moment to read and, if you wish, to send us your feedback.
We took a break from sheltering for the month of August to provide a much-needed respite for the live-in volunteers, to deep clean the house and to conduct much-needed repairs. We also used the month to reflect on our mission, our history, and our role as providers of hospitality.
The demand for our shelter services has changed significantly over the last two years. Rent assistance programs at SideWalk and at the Community Action Council have been highly successful at quickly moving the homeless off the streets and into permanent housing. Overall shelter demand among women has fallen so quickly that when we closed our doors in August the only impact was that the Salvation Army filled a few of its empty beds. For this and other reasons, we will not reopen the shelter in September.
New Direction
Bread & Roses will continue to offer hospitality, but in a new way. Beginning this September, we will provide affordable housing to 6-8 low-income people who have demonstrated a sincere commitment to service. We will rent the rooms to low-income students, Americorps volunteers, and other community volunteers and provide an environment tailored to support their service and encourage collaboration. Residency in the new intentional community will be offered for one-year commitments.
Residents will also benefit from the combined wisdom and experience of Selena, Phil, and Meta, the hosts at Bread & Roses who, along with many current and past board members, have contributed significantly to the creation of a long list of local projects: the former Bread & Roses Advocacy Center, the Voice of Olympia street newspaper, Partners in Prevention & Education (PiPE), the Drexel House, Camp Quixote, the Out of the Woods family shelter, the Family Support Center’s family shelter (now Pear Blossom Place), SideWalk, and the Olympia Power & Light newspaper. Our hosts are a vital asset of this intentional community who will mentor and develop a new generation of social justice leaders and activists.
If you or someone you know might be interested in renting a room with us, please see our invitation and application here.
What about shelter?
There is still a very serious and specific need for shelter and intensive, long-term services for homeless women with severe disabilities. We’ve found that an increasing percentage of the women who seek shelter have complex needs that cannot be met at Bread & Roses.
An unprecedented number of our guests in the past 18 months moved to adult family homes or other supportive housing, were hospitalized, or were admitted to inpatient treatment facilities. At least five of our recent guests required mobility assistance devices, in a house where every bed is at the top of a flight of stairs.
One guest experienced severe and frightening hallucinations on a daily basis; most days she was unable to prepare food for herself, bathe or tend to other necessary self-care tasks. It took us four months of persistent advocating with mental health providers to get her access to appropriate medication, and another month before she was hospitalized. While it has not been unusual for us to have one or two guests each year with similar issues, during those same four months we had eight other guests with serious mental health symptoms, two of whom were developmentally disabled young adults, and at least four of whom struggled with active substance abuse problems.
These women deserve accessible and affordable treatment and permanent housing. In the absence of adequate support services, we cannot provide hospitality to such high-needs individuals without risking their safety and ours. Nor can we count moving them to an apartment, without those services, a success.
Fortunately, our advocacy efforts and the efforts of others have paid off: The local mental health system is preparing for long-overdue reforms, the county is recognizing the need to create permanent supportive housing, and increasing inpatient treatment and psychiatric beds has become a priority at the state level. Lastly, the Interfaith Works shelter is opening a year-round location this November and will be admitting the most vulnerable among the homeless. Despite these positive developments, we will continue to advocate for a functional, responsive, and well-funded safety net for the most vulnerable in our communities.
Next Steps
Over the next year, as we host our first intentional community of service volunteers, we will continue to examine how we can best serve the community. We invite you to become part of that conversation. There are a lot of possibilities and we are certain – with your continued support – that Bread & Roses will be as vital and as valuable as ever.
We are eager to see what the next year will bring, both at home and in the wider community, and look forward to sharing our progress with you as we embark on this new journey. We are so grateful for your continued support!
Yours in Service,
Jim Mayfield, President
Rev. Amy Walters, Vice-President
Lance Avery, Treasurer
Rev. June Johnson, Secretary
Selena Kilmoyer, Volunteer Host
Meta Hogan, Volunteer Host
Phil Owen, Volunteer Host