Hope for Home: Taking Action for the Homeless

Homelessness is a persistent and unrelenting struggle that affects communities across the US. On any given night, there are an estimated 553,742 people experiencing homelessness (endhomelessness.org). Homelessness is a crisis, yet there are still insufficient resources to aid those without homes. The rate of homelessness has shown to continually increase over the years, as housing prices increase. In Seattle, over the past six years, rent has increased by 57%. This results in around 47% of households being “housing cost burdened”, meaning they pay more than 30% of their income solely on rent (seattle.gov). The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major effect on homelessness in the US due to a variety of factors, including the loss of jobs and forced reduced capacity in homeless shelters.

Hope for Home is a student-led nonprofit organization whose mission is to raise awareness about the homeless crisis in the greater Seattle area. They aim to provide aid for the homelessness crisis through education, advocacy, and donation. In terms of education, the organization regularly uploads educational posts, current events, and IGTVs on their Instagram page which helps to arm the public with the facts about the state of homelessness. They advocate through their social media page by continually encouraging donations and championing the cause of ending homelessness. Hope for Home donates by hosting meal drives once a month or once every two months, where home-cooked meals are delivered directly to a local homeless shelter. They also occasionally host ingredient drives, in which donated ingredients are also donated to a local homeless shelter.

Hope for Home has been able to achieve many things over the past year. As stated by project leader Evelyn Li, “with the help of our community we’ve been able to donate over two thousand supplies and six hundred meals to various local food banks shelters.” Hope for Home hopes to continue to aid the cause of homelessness, and in the future, they hope to, “continue [their] meal and donation drives and increase engagement throughout the community!”

Written by: Megan Yi

Sources:

https://endhomelessness.org/

https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/the-roots-of-the-crisis