Junction Point Homeless Shelter Off 128th Street

 I was able to tour the Catholic Community Services Homeless Shelter, Junction Point, last week.  This shelter is located at 1132 N 128th St. near Stone Way and 128th St.  There shelter is a series of small, individual building for the residents that look something like "tiny homes".  

I met up with Sharonda Duncan, Division Director within CSS Homeless Services.  She manages 4 of CCS's shelters around Seattle.  This shelter became active last June.  It has capacity for 49 individuals, men or women who are 50 years old or older.  The shelter is currently at full capacity.

The shelter does utilize volunteers from the community.  They can use help with their plants/gardening and putting together hygiene packs and move out packs for the residents.  If you are interested, you can visit the shelter and ring the door bell.

This is a shelter that moved from the old Junction Point location along Elliot Avenue.  The Elliot avenue shelter is now called "Bridge".

I got to see the inside of one of the "pallet" buildings which provided beds for 2 people.  There are also bathrooms are shared by the residents.

Sharonda stated that this is a temporary shelter for the residents and that CCS is "compassionately aggressive" in efforts to transition the residents to permanent housing.  She's seen residents move out as quickly as 30 days, but it's typically longer.  

This shelter was fairly quiet and peaceful during my tour.  Sharonda noted that it's an important goal for the shelter to be "good neighbors".  From what I can see, they are doing this.  Sharonda did state that this is a "low barrier" shelter.  There are services provided to residents onsite for mental health and recovery as well as medical nursing services.

I was interested to hear that residents are self-referred to the shelter rather than referred from KCRHA or some other organization.  A homeless person can show up to see if the shelter can help them.  They can meet with the onsite program director to do this.  Note that this shelter is not affiliated with the other shelters in the immediate area and they are run separately.

All-in-all, the shelter looks well run to me and Sharonda was a super nice person!  I'm proud that our community can help these folks.