More than 12,112 people are experiencing homelessness across our region, according to a one-night count this January. More than 2,500 of them are in families with children.

Mary’s Place is working to bring that number down. It’s one of our city’s best known shelters — giving beds to 680 family members every night.

“Family homelessness is solvable!” Executive Director Marty Hartman wrote us. “There could be enough resources and beds so that no child would have to sleep outside by 2020. We just need everyone to find their role to help our neighbors and contribute their skills, talents and abilities — one child, one family at a time.”

We caught up with Marty to learn a bit more about the mission of Mary’s Place mission and what she loves most about Seattle…

Conversations around homelessness in our city get heated quickly. What about them frustrates you most?

I think there’s a lot of time spent placing blame instead of taking action. We have best practices, we have great models established to ensure that no child has to sleep outside in our community, we just need to build on those to ensure every family has access to housing.

What are a couple victories Mary’s Place has seen recently that you’d like to celebrate?

• Increasing shelter capacity from 2,300 bednights six years ago to over 175,000 last year
• Piloting a new, successful program where we are working with families that aren’t lucky enough to get a bed in a shelter to move them from their cars and cardboard homes directly into permanent housing. In one year, we moved 239 families directly into housing with this flexible funding.

Where are the two places you’d take an out-of-town guest?

• Volunteering at Mary’s Place in our Kids Club – playing with children, reading books, doing art projects.
• Green Lake’s mini golf course

What’s the best advice you ever got from someone about living in Seattle?

Drop everything inside and go outside when it’s sunny!

What are five Seattle people or orgs everyone should know about?

• Amazon’s John Schoettler: “He cares so much about our families, and is having such an impact on the community.” Amazon announced plans last year to give Mary’s Place six stories in a new office tower, which is expected to open in 2020.
• Starbucks’ John Kelly: “[He’s] leading a team of dynamic and compassionate champions that are changing the way we treat our sheltered and unsheltered neighbors.”
• Mark & Lisa Caputo, local philanthropists: “Visionaries who donated over $1 million and made a $4 million loan to help us buy our first permanent location in Burien that will open in August to provide shelter for 200 moms, dads, and kids.”
• Birthday Dreams: “An amazing organization that makes sure that all kids, regardless of circumstances, have a happy birthday with treats and presents. We love it when they visit Mary’s Place!”
• HNN Associates: A “professional property management company working with Mary’s Place to give our families a second chance and a forever home.”

Learn more about Mary’s Place here. Know someone else we should introduce folks to in The Evergrey? Hit reply or email us at [email protected] to let us know.

‘Once you lose that, it’s irreplaceable.’ Finding housing is tough in Seattle. For seniors living in Chinatown-International District, their tight budgets are making it nearly impossible to stay in a neighborhood they love. Why do they want to stay? “The ability to navigate their neighborhood comfortably — to converse in their mother tongue with health-care providers, hairdressers and friends” and, as Nancy Chen told Seattle Times reporter Sarah Wu, “The smells remind me of my parents’ cooking.” Some new construction projects will include affordable units, but those prices are still out of reach for many seniors who live on fixed monthly incomes of $750 or less. Senior housing isn’t widely available, either, due to low turnover. “Once you’re in, you stay until you pass away,” housing case manager Helene Chin told the Times. (The Seattle Times)

Spun out. Spin was the first bikeshare program to launch in the Emerald City, and it looks like it’ll be the second to close shop. The company, known for its orange bikes, decided not to renew its bike-share permit due to high permit fees. Why? So they could focus on expanding their electric scooter fleet. Ofo, another company that had bikes across the city, said in July that it’d be shutting down and leaving a bunch of bikes behind. But Spin reps said the company could return — if city leaders decide to allow electric scooters. 🛴 (Curbed Seattle)

Move over, ice cream trucks. Local fave Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream’s opened a bunch of ice cream vending machines across our region this week. They’re serving up “minimoons,” a.k.a. little cups of your favorite treats everywhere from Washington State ferries to Seattle Children’s Hospital and University Village. For now, you can get melted chocolate, cookie dough, salted caramel, and Scout mint. While Molly Moon’s won’t be right on our doorsteps like a neighborhood ice cream truck, we’re curious: Will the new machines play joyful jingles, too? 🍦(Seattle Magazine)

One for the veggies. Having a hard time finding vegetarian or vegan fare in Seattle, or want to ramp up your plant-based eating game? Check out the five-course vegan meals at Harvest Beet in Wallingford, “pan-fried, paneer-stuffed paratha flat breads” at Travelers Thali House in Beacon Hill, or vegetarian pies at World Pizza in Chinatown-International District. 😋 (Seattle Met)

LOTS OF TEARS, BUT ALL THE R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Aretha Franklin, the legendary singer, civil rights activist  and all-around Queen of Soul — passed away yesterday in Detroit after a battle with advanced pancreatic cancer. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and sang for three U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama. Check out one of her amazing performances here. 🎤

“Her voice could transition from gentle breeze to hurricane with astonishing power and finesse,” music critic Dave Segal wrote for The Stranger. “Long before Prince, Aretha could evoke godliness and raunchiness in song with equal aplomb, at the flutter of an eyelash. Rarely has one voice possessed such potency and pliability.”

We’ll miss you, Aretha. And we’ll try (and probably fail) to do you justice when we sing along to you in the car. Thanks for the music. ❤️

See you next week, folks. — The Evergrey