Mary's Place

MARY’S PLACE BELIEVES THAT NO ONE’S CHILD SHOULD SLEEP OUTSIDE.

Mary’s Place ensures that no child sleeps outside by centering equity and opportunity for women and children.

Since 1999, Mary’s Place has helped thousands of women and families move out of homelessness into more stable situations. Across five emergency family shelters in King County, we keep families together, inside, and safe when they have no place else to go, providing resources, housing and employment services, community, and hope. 

Each day, our housing team works with families to address barriers and empower parents to build family stability, secure housing, and prepare for employment. Kids are connected with schools, participate in fun and enriching activities, and go on outings and adventures in Kids Club. In the evening, families in shelter eat dinner, do homework, spend time together, and prepare for the week ahead.

Children with life-threatening illnesses should not be living in cars and tents awaiting chemo or dialysis. Families who have lost everything in the struggle to get their child well have a place to receive care and support in shelter in Mary's Place Popsicle Place program.

Still, capacity is limited and hundreds of families are outside each night in cars and tents. Mary’s Place team of mobile outreach specialists work with unsheltered families where they are, to address barriers with flexible funding and help move them quickly into stable housing, bypassing a shelter stay.

But keeping families in their homes, preventing homelessness in the first place, reduces trauma, ends the cycle of homelessness, and it’s cost-effective. The Mary’s Place Rapid Response Fund works with families and landlords to help keep families in their hard-won homes.

Our Women’s Day Center in downtown Seattle provides meals, showers, laundry, access to resources, safety and relationship to over a hundred women each day.

The support of the community keeps our doors open. The path out of homelessness can be long and challenging. Each person that finds housing is ultimately responsible for his or her accomplishment, but often a community of support, education, and advocacy has helped along the way.