‘No place to go.’ Pasco shelter turns away moms, kids. Secret donor steps in to help
A $250,000 anonymous donor is helping Andrew Porter turbocharge plans for a modern, new emergency shelter for women and children in central Kennewick.
A family with Tri-Cities connections will match donations to the Tri-City Union Gospel Mission’s proposed new shelter through the end of the year, effectively doubling individual contributions.
Porter, executive director, said he’s beating every bush to ensure the project receives every penny attached to the gift.
The Union Gospel Mission has raised $2 million to date, with $7.5 million left to go before it can begin the final push to replace the existing shelter in Pasco, which it calls “unsafe and unsuitable.”
Needed it yesterday
In an ideal world, the new shelter would already be open.
“We needed it yesterday,” Porter said.
In the real world, it will take about 18 month to finalize designs, once it has funding secured. The $250,000 matching gift will help the mission show grant-making institutions the project enjoys local support and is worthy of their attention.
Small donations today can help bring in large ones later.
The Kennewick shelter will replace the outdated and arguably dilapidated emergency facilities available to women and minor boys in east Pasco.
The 1913-built building has worn out power, water and sewer systems and is limited to 30 beds and a small day room. There’s no room for classrooms or even a yard where children could play outside.
It is almost always full, with people waiting any time a bed frees up.
The result is the shelter and its staff are regularly forced to turn away women — often accompanied by children — seeking shelter.
The shelter is often the first stop for women and children who need a place to stay while they apply for transitional and permanent housing.
‘It’s heartbreaking’
Qualifying for benefits can take six months or longer. Porter said social workers often consult with UGM to confirm clients seeking help are truly homeless.
“What happens to them while they’re waiting? They have no place to go. That’s why our shelter is so important,” he said.
Porter said staff were forced to turn away a family — a mom with four kids — only last week.
“It’s a regular thing now. It’s hard to see it. It’s heartbreaking,” he said.
The Kennewick shelter aims to do for women and children what the mission’s new Pasco shelter did for men six years ago: Replace an unsafe, unsuitable shelter with a modern new one.
Porter said the fundraising climate has changed since the nonprofit Christian missionary organization raised $10.4 million, mostly through community donations, to build its 40,000-square-foot men’s facility in downtown Pasco.
The men’s facility provides shelter as well as a residential program to help its residents beat addiction. Construction started in 2017 and it opened in late 2018.
“It’s just been different in terms of people’s ability and willingness to give,” he said.
Once the men’s facility was up and running, Porter and his team turned their attention to the women’s shelter.
The matching donation is an opportunity to bring in money and remind people of the desperate need for emergency housing.
In 2021, it paid $900,000 for vacant property at 533 N. Young St., between the Three Rivers Convention Center complex and the Tri-Cities Cancer Center.
It developed a concept for the facility, but won’t finalize engineering and architectural details until the capital campaign is further along.
How to donate
The Union Gospel Mission will happily update the vision to serve more people if donations support it, Porter said.
Porter said its difficult to measure if demand has increased — since the shelter is always full, it doesn’t have an increase to measure.
But traffic at the men’s shelter has increased 29%. Porter thinks it’s probable the numbers are mirrored in the women seeking shelter.
The proposed shelter will offer apartments for women with children, classrooms, play spaces, offices and a Kennewick location that served by public transportation and boasts jobs at nearby businesses.
Donate at the Tri-City Union Gospel Mission web site, tcugm.org.
Send checks to Tri-City Union Gospel Mission, P.O. Box 1443, Pasco, WA 99301. Indicate “women’s shelter” on the memo line.
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