Roots Young Adult Shelter

Roots initially began directly providing case management services as an agency in 2017. In addition, we offer a weekly art group guests can attend after our shelter program closes. We also reintroduced our monthly book club drop-in program in late 2024. Our case management staff assisted 111 unduplicated guests in 2024 and helped with numerous goals large and smallthat ranged from replacing lost id cards and phones to finding permanent housing.

Friday feast is our weekly meal program and is the only allages dinner in the area. This program serves an average of 140-180 meals each week and celebrated its 28th anniversary of uninterrupted weekly operations in april 2024. Friday feast served approximately 8150 meals to approximately 350 unduplicated guests in 2024, and volunteers donated over 3000 hours of their time to help provide these services.

Public engagement: in addition to providing critical direct services, roots' founding vision includes a dedication to the development of a stable and comprehensive network of youth and young adult services as well as the need for systems change, both in the university district and throughout the city of seattle, the broader region and society at large. To this end, roots works to bring together diverse groups and to build the partnerships that are required to address homelessness and poverty in a long-term manner, providing leadership in several issues of regionwide advocacy efforts (including the seattle-king county coalition on homelessness, the university district service providers alliance, and the national network for youth).