Adobe Funds Shelter, Food, and Services for Families in Crisis

The Fremont Public Association (FPA) was founded in 1974 to address hunger, poverty, and high unemployment in Seattle's North End and Fremont neighborhoods. It has been an Adobe Community Investment Partner since 1999.

According to FPA, the largest increase in homelessness over the past five years has come from families. In the Seattle area alone, families make up nearly 50 percent of the homeless population, and some 46,000 children rely on food banks. Fittingly, Adobe's 2003 FPA grant of US$30,000 supported operation of the Broadview Emergency Shelter and Transitional Housing Program and the Fremont Family Shelter.

Housing approximately 400 tenants annually, Broadview provides single women and women with children emergency shelter for up to six weeks, and transitional housing as needed for 3 to 12 months or longer. It offers 24-hour staffing and crisis services, advocacy-based counseling, goal-setting and weekly progress meetings, domestic violence education and support groups, and resource referrals, as well as on-site addiction recovery and health care. Children's programs include age-specific support groups, tutoring, and homework assistance. Each furnished unit accommodates one family or two women.

The Fremont Family Shelter provides short-term emergency shelter for up to four weeks and long-term shelter for up to three months for single- and two-parent families, including those with numerous children or older teens. Housing units are safe, clean, well-maintained, and fully furnished apartments located in various city neighborhoods, within walking distance of grocery stores and bus lines. FPA tries to place families in familiar surroundings so that schools and support networks remain close by.

From Adobe and others, private funds enable FPA to offer 24-hour shelter staffing and the case-management, translation, support-group, and other services that help families in crisis work toward stability and permanent housing. In 2003, Adobe also stepped up to help FPA with a special project.

For the past 20 years, FPA's Food Resources program has delivered groceries to food banks throughout Seattle, including hard-to-get products such as baby formula. FPA received city funds in 2003 to purchase a refrigerated truck, enabling the organization to distribute fresh milk and other perishables for the first time. With one phone call to Adobe, FPA triggered a fund-raising drive by the Adobe Seattle Philanthropy Council to purchase the inaugural delivery of fresh milk. Employee contributions, Adobe matching funds, and a small company grant combined to generate US$6,000 in a matter of a few weeks, enough to send 3,100 gallons of fresh milk on the truck's maiden voyage.
Learn more about the Fremont Public Association

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