Two opportunities to run/walk for Solid Ground!

Running and walking enthusiasts: Grab your shoes and your friends, and sign up for two spring 5K events to support Solid Ground – both taking place at Seward Park!

Sunday, April 15, 9:30am: POUND THE GROUND 5K / ERACE POVERTY
Seward Park (5895 Lake Washington Blvd S, Seattle, WA 98118)

Pound the Ground is a 5K run/walk organized by Erace Poverty, a nonprofit that empowers community members to come together and participate in race events to raise money for poverty relief programs and heighten public awareness about poverty. We are honored to be chosen as the sole beneficiary of their race on April 15th at Seward Park!

Tyler Brown of Erace Poverty says, “Like Solid Ground, Erace Poverty believes that our community can one day move past poverty. We also believe in how Solid Ground is working to get there, through programs that eliminate the root causes of poverty and support people along a path toward self-sufficiency.”

Solid Ground Board of Directors member Ryan Keyser plans to participate. He says, “Running season is back in full swing, which for me means a time of melting away built up stress and getting back outside after the cold winter months. I look forward to this event and supporting Solid Ground while being active at the same time, and what better place to experience the natural beauty of Seattle than Seward Park!”

The Pound the Ground 5K run/walk benefits our programs that serve homeless children. Beyond providing housing and addressing immediate health and safety needs, your $35 entry fee will help children in King County begin to recover from homelessness and abuse in a safe and nurturing environment, succeed in school, and participate in recreational and educational programs. Don’t wait, because the entry fee increases to $45 on 4/1!

You can also increase your donation by collecting pledges! Ask friends and family to support your race day effort by matching your entry fee with a pledge. A pledge will not only help Solid Ground meet the needs of homeless children, it will also earn you a free PTG T-shirt!   

Pound the Ground race day schedule:
~8 – 9:15am: Registration
~9:30 – 10:10am: 5K run
~9:45 – 10:25am: 5K walk
~10:30 – 10:45am: Awards presentation

• For more information or to register, visit: http://poundtheground.com/
• Volunteer! Lots of volunteer tasks and shifts are available, from course monitoring to registration to setup/cleanup.
• Questions? Contact Tyler Brown / tbrown@eracepoverty.org / 206.290.5114

 

Sunday, May 27, 9am: GOOD KARMA 5K
Seward Park (5895 Lake Washington Blvd S, Seattle, WA 98118)

Also save the date for the Good Karma 5K, Seattle’s only “choose your own charity” fun run! For the second year in a row, Solid Ground is one of 10 local featured nonprofit organizations that will benefit from the run – and you get to decide where your portion of the proceeds goes. Registration is $25 (online registration ends May 24 at 3pm) or $30 on the day of the race. Teams of 10 or more are eligible for a $5 per person discount. Please email the Race Director to get your team discount code at info@runforgoodracingcompany.com

We’ll have some Solid Ground staffers out there running, so let us know if you will be there so we can say hello! 

• For more information or to register, visit: www.goodkarma5k.com
• Questions? Email: info@runforgoodracingcompany.com

Tenant Tip: Financial Fitness Day!

On March 31, 2012 from 10am-2pm, the Seattle-King County Asset Building Collaborative and several community agencies – including Solid Ground – are partnering to provide a day of workshops related to finances, money management and other community resources such as job search, housing, personal budgeting and more. Financial Fitness Day will take place at the Rainier Community Center at 4600 38^th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98118.

The event will feature a series of free workshops as well as one-on-one help with filing income taxes, credit and mortgage counseling, financial advising, and information on receiving public benefits.

This is a great resource fair for renters interested in getting a free credit report, free counseling on debt management, and credit repair tips. It can help renters understand the information that is often listed on screening reports and know what to expect when completing rental housing applications.

It will also be a useful event for homeowners seeking mortgage counseling and resources as well as anyone looking for financial tips, business startup and consumer rights information, and much more. The flyer below provides a list of participating organizations and some of the services that will be offered.

 

It’s okay to ask for help

Lisa and Rusty

Editor’s note: We are honored to present Lisa Pierce’s account of her journey through homelessness, especially the moving story of her time spent living at a roadside rest area.)

In December, 2007, my son Brycen and I moved into a beautiful 4-bedroom home with a fenced yard in the Renton Highlands. We lived in a quiet neighborhood next door to our church. We had two roommates to offset the rent and utilities.

I was working and going about my life, just maintaining. Then, in 2009, I lost my job as a manager due to my Multiple Sclerosis.

To this day, I still don’t know how I was blessed to be introduced to Solid Ground. The first person I encountered was Tunde Akunyun. (Tunde’s work in Solid Ground’s Stable Families program focuses on helping at-risk families maintain their housing stability.)

Tunde came into my world and made a difference. She didn’t just help keep the roof over our heads and the lights on. She helped me get my social security disability benefits. She taught me how to budget my money. And when I was diagnosed with diabetes, she was responsible for me being able to give myself an insulin injection.

The biggest thing she did for me was let me know it’s okay to ask for help.

In May of last year, I lost the home. The owner passed away and it was sold out from under us. I didn’t have savings or a plan.

My son and I had packed our four Chihuahuas and what we could fit in the car and moved to a motel.

My income was $765 disability and $91 food stamps per month. So, I was able to keep us in a room for two weeks at a time. The other two were spent at the SeaTac rest area on I-5 and at a truck stop where we could pay for a shower.

Living at the rest area
When you are at the rest area, the only really good thing is that you are right there next to Enchanted Village and Wild Waves. During the summer it would make you feel like you are not out in the woods. Sometimes you could just dream about it, like, “I wish I could take Brycen over there.” It did help.

When I first came to the rest area, I really didn’t pay much attention to anybody else. I didn’t want to be seen, didn’t want people to notice me sitting in my car, making my phone calls looking for shelter and doing my paperwork. I started to be more attentive to my surroundings, and who was coming and who was going.

I noticed this man. He walked by my car continuously, all day long. So, I started to watch him. He would go to the garbage can and he would rummage through it. He would go to the ashtray where people put out their cigarettes and he would go through that.

One day, it was pouring down rain and I noticed he went into the men’s room and he got a bunch of paper towels, came out and sopped up all the water out of the cigarette thing. He was hoping he could get a cigarette butt out of there that wasn’t sopping wet. And that is when I really started paying attention, like “Wow, he is really staying here.” Someone that is just passing through is not going to take the time to do that, you know.

As the days went by, I kept noticing the same vehicles there. Then, when I would go into the restroom, I would see everybody that would go in there – I would see their clothes – basically like a dressing room.

One day, I counted and I noticed there were about 12 vehicles with people that were living there. You’ll see them, just to kill time, take things out of their vehicles, put it back in. Like you would do in housework, doing housework in your car. Just something to do.

Well this man, one day I watched him and he went up to a gentleman who had a really nice car, and dressed really nice. You really can’t judge a book by its cover, but you had to assume that he probably had money. The guy was smoking right next to his car.

I had my window down just a little bit and I heard him say, “Do you have a cigarette?” And this man talked to him like he was just the lowest piece of garbage. You know: “Get away from me old man, I don’t know who you” – just awful words I can’t even say. So that just hurt me and I started to cry.

So, I went up to him after that gentleman left and I gave him a bunch of cigarettes. I asked him if he was hungry and he said he was. I had a few dollars in my pocket, so I drove to McDonald’s and got him some food and brought it back to him. He was just so shocked, I don’t think anyone had ever done that for him before.

When I could, I always made it a point to help him. When I got my apartment here, I’ve never forgotten him. I can’t forget him.

Hunger Action Week 2012: What’s on your plate?

This post was adapted from United Way of King County information about Hunger Action Week, originally posted on the Cooking Matters Seattle blog.

United Way of King County (UWKC) is shining a bright light on hunger, asking everyone to think about their relationship to food: Who has food, who doesn’t, where does your food come from? They’re promoting Hunger Action Week 2012, March 19-24 and encourage us all to sign up to participate! When you do, you’ll learn about ways you can get involved locally and be part of a movement that is helping to assure that everyone in our community can put nourishing food on the table.

How you can help:

• Sign up to participate in Hunger Action Week.
• Volunteer for local hunger relief.
• Help UWKC get a Food Security Count.
• Learn more about the Hunger Relief Now! plan.
• Host a dinner party or potluck with friends and family using foods typically found at a food bank, or ask guests to bring nonperishable items to donate to your local food bank.
• If you plan on hosting a food drive, contact your local food bank to see what they need and when you can deliver it.
• Take the Hunger Challenge! And if you do, write about it and share your story (npeters@uwkc.org), and consider donating what you save this week on food.

What does Hunger Action Week hope to accomplish?
The purpose of Hunger Action Week is to raise awareness around hunger. Most people don’t realize how many people are struggling. For most of us, it’s so easy to forget that many in America don’t know where their next meal will come from – or that many have to choose between having enough food to eat and paying for rent.

The need:
Data from the Adequate Food in King County section of the Communities Count report, released in February 2012:

• 20% of King County children are food insecure. That means 1 in 5 King County kids are at risk of going hungry.
• 13% of King County residents – or 249,260 people – are food insecure.
• 9% of King County households ran out of food in 2010 – up from 6% in 2007.
• In King County, 49% of Hispanic households with children are food-insecure.
• 15% of South King County Region residents could not afford balanced meals; 8% went hungry.

And King County food assistance programs show that the need continues to climb:

• Basic Food (SNAP) caseloads increased by 83% between 2009 and 2011.
• Seattle food banks have seen a 30% increase in the number of clients coming to them for help. At the same time, they’ve had a 31% decline in donations.
• WIC enrollment has increased steadily since 2006.

During Hunger Action Week, we want to get people thinking about, talking about, and taking action around hunger – so join the conversation!

Have they no shame?

 “If you are a poor woman, let me just say, tonight is not your night.”
– Senator Brown

These words from Senator Brown came shortly before 1am on Saturday morning after Senate Republicans, with the assistance of three Democrats, took over the Senate floor using an arcane parliamentary procedure and passed a shameful all-cuts budget.

The budget passed early Saturday morning is, indeed, incredibly harmful to low-income women across the state. The Senate’s budget makes $202 million in cuts to our state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. This includes an additional 2% grant cut, lowering the lifetime limit to 48 months, and a loss of 4,000 child care slots.

Knowing that the public supports a safety net for our state’s most vulnerable, these lawmakers kept their budget proposal quiet, held no hearings on it, and forced a vote before most lawmakers even had a chance to read the proposal. Now that we can actually read this budget, here are the details on the over $350 million in cuts to the state’s safety net:

•    It cuts funding for our state’s struggling families, those who are on TANF, by $202 million.
•    It eliminates the Disability Lifeline Medical program for 15,000 low-income disabled adults.
•    It eliminates the State Food Assistance Program, which provides food to 12,000 immigrant families each month.
•    It cuts more than $40 million from the Housing and Essential Needs program.

This is unacceptable. This is an attack on our state’s commitment to care for all Washingtonians, regardless of income. As if that’s not enough, the budget passed by the Senate on Saturday morning directly contradicts the public testimony and presence of thousands of citizens who came to Olympia or contacted legislators urging them to protect the safety net.

We still have a chance to make a difference. This budget, while shameful, still needs to go to the House for concurrence. Your lawmakers in both the House and the Senate need to hear from you today.

Lawmakers must see these messages everywhere they look: in their inboxes, in their voicemails, and in their local papers. Please take these three actions now!

1.    Send them an email and urge them to stand strong for our state’s safety net.
2.    Call them at 1.800.562.6000 and tell them that you support a budget for all Washingtonians.
3.    Use our template to send a letter to the editor of your paper in support of low-income women and children, in support of people with disabilities, and in support of our immigrant and refugee communities.

Marcy Bowers is Director of Solid Ground’s Statewide Poverty Action Network, which builds grassroots power to end causes of poverty and create opportunities for everyone to prosper.