DESC clients, for the most part, are not homeless due solely to economic circumstance or the lack of affordable housing in our region.  Many live with challenges such as mental illness, addiction, HIV and other physical or developmental disabilities. 

In the face of too little housing for too many people, our solution is simple—provide housing first to the most vulnerable—individuals who are extremely poor, who are severely, often multiply, disabled, and who have long histories of homelessness or many failures in other low-income housing settings.

Housing First
DESC’s supportive housing is predicated on the concept of Housing First.  As the name suggests, Housing First practice dispenses with decades of trying either to reward people with housing for achieving some pre-determined clinical goal or trying to predict who is “ready” for housing.  Instead, Housing First practice says, simply, let’s get people into housing, because it is a basic human right, and because it makes more sense to try help someone with a major mental illness, addiction or developmental or other disability once you have eliminated the chaos of living on the streets.

To DESC, supportive housing means much more than a “building with services.”  The design of the facility, staffing patterns, program values and ways of interacting with residents all combine to create a program that helps people succeed over the long term.  Residents benefit from 24-hour, seven day a week supportive services including:

•  State-licensed mental health and chemical dependency treatment
•  On-site health care services
•  Daily meals and weekly outings to food banks
•  Case management and payee services
•  Medication monitoring
•  Weekly community building activities

Projects in development Canaday House Opening in late 2010, Canaday House will create 83 studio units of affordable housing, supportive services, community space and outdoor garden for residents.  This project is named in memory of Nick Canaday, a former volunteer and advocate for homeless people and one of the motivating voices behind what later became the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. Current supportive housing DESC operates over 700 units of supportive housing in the Seattle area. 1811 Eastlake  1811 Eastlake opened its doors to 75 homeless men and women with chronic alcohol addiction in December 2005. This innovative housing model is the first of its kind in Washington to address the needs of homeless chronic alcoholics who are the heaviest users of publicly-funded crisis services. Evans House Named for a former DESC employee, Evans House opened in 2007 to provide permanent supportive housing for 75 of our community's most vulnerable homeless adults.  Residents include men and women recently released from psychiatric hospitalization who are working with DESC's PACT Team, and individuals who are both mentally ill and developmentally disabled. Kerner-Scott House With the opening of this building in 1997, DESC was the first housing provider in the region to adopt the practice now known as 'Housing First'. It contains 40 apartments — 25 "safe haven" units for homeless mentally ill people, and 15 units for formerly homeless adults in recovery from addiction.  It is also the site of a 25-bed DESC shelter for mentally-ill women. This building is named to memorialize two former DESC clients who would have benefited from such housing. The Lyon Building Purchased and renovated by AIDS Housing of Washington (now Building Changes) in 1997, DESC was selected to manage the project. This building has 64 apartments for homeless adults affected by HIV/AIDS, mental illness and/or addiction. The Morrison  Containing 190 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless adults with serious disabilities, this is DESC’s largest housing project.  This historic building completed renovations in 2005. The Morrison is also home to Connections daytime service center, DESC’s 24-hour main emergency shelter and administrative offices. Rainier House Opened in 2009, Rainier House has 50 units of supportive housing for men and women with mental illness who have spent long periods of time living on the streets or in shelters. Like all DESC supportive housing, it is designed to help people maintain their housing, improve their lives and live as independently as possible. The Union Hotel DESC's first supportive housing building, opened in 1994, where 52 formerly homeless, disabled tenants live in their own apartments. Over 30% of residents at the Union Hotel have lived there for ten years or longer. Scattered Site Housing DESC has housing subsidies which case managers use to place their clients into rental properties throughout Seattle. The key to making this model work is the integration of DESC’s case management services to provide the necessary support for people to succeed and stabilize.