Solid Ground Washington

Established in 1974, Solid Ground has become a vital part of King County's fight against poverty. We currently provide 20+ services that address basic needs, educate residents, and advocate for structural reform for 76,000 people annually who face homelessness, hunger, and other barriers. Our program goals include:

Advocacy: Our Statewide Poverty Action Network builds grassroots power to end causes of poverty and create opportunities for everyone to prosper. With a membership of 14,000 people, we give advocates a platform to create change in their communities through direct contact with legislators. Benefits Legal Assistance provides direct legal representation, advice, and counsel for benefits of State aid programs, with the goal of 250 cases each year with favorable outcomes.

Residential Services works to provide a continuum of housing services from emergency shelter to permanent supportive housing for up to 900 individuals and families annually through Broadview Emergency Shelter & Transitional Housing, Sand Point Housing Campus, and Family Shelter. These residential services include case management and onsite services that support long-term housing stability and greater self-sufficiency.

Stabilization Services aims to support over 2,100 individuals and families each as they secure and sustain housing. Through four distinct programs (Housing Stability, Journey Home Rabid Rehousing, Tenant Counseling, and the North Regional Access Point) we offer personalized services that prevent homelessness and facilitate secure housing.

Hunger and Food Resources combats hunger and malnutrition by increasing access to food and teaching people about nutrition and eating healthy on a budget. Our Community Food Education aim to work with over 2,000 students and families each year. Food System Support organizes and improves Seattle's emergency food network.

Solid Ground Transportation facilitates door-to-door transportation for people with limited mobility who are unable to ride the regular King County Metro bus system. Our goal is to provide 310,000 rides each year.

Volunteer Services: Our volunteer services work to create opportunities for people to make a real difference in their communities. Our Retired and Senior Volunteer Program creates a network of elders engaged in serving their communities, delivering nearly 160,000 service hours to local nonprofits. Other volunteer positions tap into community support for one-time or ongoing opportunities that result in nearly 153,000 hours of volunteering annually.

With the understanding that a stable home is foundational to ending poverty, Solid Ground provides housing and homeless prevention in combination with services that meet basic needs to allow individuals and families to rebuild and thrive. We work with our participants to nurture success by providing tools, training, and counseling for long-term stability through a multigenerational approach. Embedded in our mission is an Anti-Racism Initiative, recognizing we exist within a flawed system and supporting our staff to remain on a growing edge. Our key strategy areas are to Meet Basic Needs, Nurture Success, and Catalyze Change.

Meeting Basic Needs:
• Supporting 365 survivors of domestic violence (DV) with safe housing, therapeutic children’s services, and an individualized combination of DV legal advocacy, long-term stability planning, and culturally relevant community connections for clinical and therapeutic care.
• Providing three levels of housing and supportive services for 225 households, including 224 children and 109 New Americans, recent immigrants, and refugees, escaping homelessness through seven residential buildings on our Sand Point campus located in the beautiful greenspace of Magnuson Park.
• Diverting 334 individuals away from the at-capacity homeless response system to more permanent housing by granting one-time financial assistance, facilitating transportation through bus tickets and rideshare programs, offering mediation support for roommate challenges, and more. 80% of the participants assisted through Diversion in 2019 were people of color.
• Supporting the network of the Seattle-area emergency food system through our coordination of the Seattle Food Committee’s (SFC) 25 food bank members, in addition to delivering thousands of pounds of food and goods to local food banks.
• Providing over 280,000 rides for King County residents who cannot access Metro’s fixed-route service, connecting our community members living with disabilities to critical health and human services.

Nurturing Success:
• Facilitating Financial Fitness Boot Camp (FFBC) hosted 953 participants in peer-supported workshops in partnerships with affordable housing providers.
• Leading coordinated and comprehensive steps to prevent eviction through a tenant counseling services that supports 1,167 renters and people experiencing homelessness through our 77 RentSmart workshops and 413 calls to the Bilingual Tenant Hotline.
• Assisting people accessing Medicaid, Home and Community Based Care, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Food Assistance, and Aged Blind and Disabled benefits. In total, our Benefits Legal Assistance team closed 193 cases in 2019.

Catalyzing Change:
Our Statewide Poverty Action Network joins with community members to advocate for the rights and equitable treatment we all deserve.
• We conduct listening sessions in communities experiencing poverty throughout the state to create an annual advocacy agenda for the State Legislature.

Solid Ground's capacity and relevant organizational experience is that of more than 46 years serving people living on very low incomes, including 35 years of delivering residential services. In 1982 we opened our Family Shelter program, and the following year, opened our Broadview residence to deliver emergency domestic violence shelter services; our Sand Point campus broke ground in 1993 and now serves nearly 400 people every year.

We have been recognized as a leader at the forefront of housing and human services during our 43-year history, pioneering innovative models years before others and advocating for dozens of stabilizing laws that protect people living on low incomes, including the Housing Levy in 1986 and the Washington State Housing Trust Fund in 1992. We have created innovative programs that now operate independently or were taken over by other agencies, such as Fremont's curbside recycling, Seattle Workers Center, Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), Home Care services, Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, and Family Works. We pioneered our Journey Home rapid-rehousing program in 1997 and founded the Non-Profit Anti-Racism Coalition (NPARC) in 2001.

Despite the changing local economic landscape, Solid Ground has remained steadfast in approach to serving people experiencing homelessness or living on low incomes. Solid Ground began as a clothing bank and handyman service, grew to include recycling services, at-home care for seniors and people with disabilities, and transitioned to serve those most at risk of instability in our community with more than 20 services, including homelessness prevention, housing for formerly homeless people, nutrition education, food system support, transportation for people with disabilities, state and local advocacy for people to have a platform for their voices to make lasting legislative change, and community volunteer opportunities. Our staff and volunteers embrace anti-racist/anti-oppressive values and actively work to integrate these values into their daily duties. This has been most prevalent through the development of an Anti-Racism Initiative, which includes a dedicated leader to guide the initiative and protected time for ARI training, identity-based caucusing, and program-based implementation of anti-racist principles and values. Furthermore, our recent strategic plan has allowed us to re-center our values at the forefront of our path forward.

From 2016-2020, Solid Ground will strengthen our people-centered approach and use social justice strategies to better align how we work to our mission and increase the well-being of the people we serve. Our community is stronger when all people can realize their potential.

We will be more ACCOUNTABLE to communities impacted by poverty

People know best what they need and should be involved in decisions that affect their lives. We will:▶▶ implement new ways to meaningfully engage people to inform our decisions

▶▶ seek and utilize input from people we serve and others living in poverty to ensure our services increasingly align with their needs
▶▶ develop and support collaborative relationships with participants, partners and funders


We will take an INDIVIDUALIZED APPROACH to addressing needs

People face unique barriers to stability, and those barriers are increasing. One size does not fit all. We will:

▶▶ tailor our service approach to meet people's individual needs
▶▶ deepen external partnerships and internal coordination to deliver better outcomes for people we serve
▶▶ develop and implement comprehensive services for children and youth in our residences

We will successfully ADVOCATE to achieve equitable laws and policies

To end poverty and achieve social justice existing systems and institutions must change. The people we work with bring important voices to this work. We will:

▶▶ empower people to bring their lived experience to the political process to promote systemic change
▶▶ identify and change systems and policies that create and maintain barriers to opportunity
▶▶ mobilize people to increase our impact on anti-poverty and anti-racism issues.