Mary's Place raised $2.4 million for new emergency shelter for homeless families

The nonprofit Mary’s Place announced today it exceeded expectations and raised $2.4 million to open a new emergency shelter for homeless families.

The campaign, now in its fifth year, is called “No Child Sleeps Outside.”

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The shelter is located in a vacant building on the 700 block of Aurora Avenue North and will be able to house about 300 families a year.

Mary’s Place Executive Director Marty Hartman said 2,500 individuals and 100 local businesses contributed to the success of this 45-day fundraising campaign.

“It’s our community they rose up,” said Hartman. “They saw their neighbors at their needs they saw them struggling outside and wanted to bring them inside”.

Right now about 2,500 families are homeless in King County and that include about 1,200 children.

Among the long list of donors for this latest campaign is The Starbucks Foundation, which gave about $400,000 toward this campaign.

“We can do better, we must do better,” said John Kelly. “In one of the wealthiest places in the country, there’s no reason there isn’t sufficient emergency shelter”.

Last year’s “No Child Sleeps Outside" campaign raised $.2.2 million.

The goal is to do more this year with and the new rapid exit shelter will target families who only need a short stay and have resources to move back into stable housing within 30 days.

Demolition and renovation at the new shelter will start this Friday and residents are expected to move in by the end of March.

Cox Media Group