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Interfaith Works Response to COVID-19

3/12/2020

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Health and Safety First

The health and safety of Interfaith Works shelter guests and our staff is our highest priority. We manage infectious diseases and practice robust sanitation and disinfection of our spaces at all times, but the unknowns of the COVID-19 epidemic demand vigorous precautions.

Our shelter and Community Care Center guests are at the highest risk for severe illness if they become infected. As of today, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the houseless community or the employees who work with them in Thurston County. 


We are working daily with County and State Public Health officials to ensure that there is a clear and realistic plan for quarantine and treatment options for people experiencing homelessness if an outbreak occurs among the houseless community in Thurston County.

Our Steps to Keep Our Guests and Staff Safe

Additionally, we are taking the following steps to keep our guests and our staff safe:
  1. Closely following State and County Health Department recommendations and talking daily with healthcare partners at the Community Care Center like Providence, Valley View, and The Olympia Free Clinic for most up to date recommendations.
  2. As of March 12, 2020 we started mandatory and daily screening of all guests at the Community Care Center and the Nightly Shelter to determine if their symptoms meet criteria for testing. Through our partnership with Providence, we are coordinating closely with three clinics who are now testing people in Thurston County. We are arranging for safe transport in the event someone meets the criteria and needs to be seen at a clinic.
  3. Increased outreach and information sharing with our staff, partner agencies, and guests who utilize our services about who's at highest risk (older folks, folks of any age who have weakened immune systems or complicating health factors like chronic illness, substance use, and people with lack of access to basic hygiene). We have posted Health Department posters about how to wash hands properly, signs and symptoms, and what to do if someone is symptomatic.
  4. All guests and employees are being directed to avoid touching their eyes, nose, and mouth.
  5. All employees who are sick are being directed to stay home whenever possible. We currently offer paid leave for all of our employees, but in addition to their normal accrual, we are creating an internal emergency declaration policy regarding paid leave for employees who may require additional time off to get well.
  6. Our services rely on maintaining a safe and adequate staff-to-guest ratio, and we are prepared to modify our hours of operation if we cannot adequately staff any of our programs. This would be a worst-case scenario that we hope would not ever be necessary.
  7. All guests and employees are being directed to cover coughs or sneezes with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
  8. All guests and employees are being directed to wash hands multiple times per day!  To be effective, wash hands for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after nose blowing, coughing, or sneezing.
  9. All guests and employees are asked to fist bump, elbow bump, or shoe bump to say hello to people -- no high fives, no handshakes. If they forget, they should wash their hands immediately and avoid touching their face.
  10. All guests and employees are being told to get a flu shot if they haven't already.
  11. We are making sure that hand sanitizer and disinfectant cleaning supplies are well stocked and promoted regularly.
  12. We are buying as many N95 masks as we can and prioritizing them for immune compromised employees and guests at highest risk of severe illness. 
  13. We are performing regular bleach wipe-downs of door handles, light switches, table and counter tops, computers, phones and other frequently touched surfaces multiple times on each shift. During daily cleaning shifts at our shelter, we open windows and run fans to promote air flow and ventilation. 
  14. All employees are being told to increase their use of protective gloves and to distribute gloves to guests.
  15. We are working with partner agencies at the Community Care Center to minimize the congregation of high-risk populations by asking all non-medical providers to stay home or provide service consultations by phone.​
  16. We are actively lobbying the State and Local governments to increase allocation of resources to create a clear and culturally relevant plan for increased hygiene access and quarantine for people who are living in shelters, encampments, and sleeping on sidewalks and in doorways.
  17. We are suspending group meetings and conducting them online whenever possible. We will be cancelling this month's Program Council and the Homeless Services monthly volunteer training. â€‹

Questions?

Please let us know if you have any questions:
office@interfaith-works.org
We are sending love and strength to you and your families during this difficult time.

How You Can Help

  1. Sign up to bring a meal (either home-cooked or consider food from a local business who might be struggling right now as well), to the nightly shelter and drop it off with staff across the street so we can bring it in and serve it. If you are already signed up, please consider if there are other ways to keep that commitment rather than canceling. We are happy to talk through ideas with you! Check out our volunteer calendar to see what nights we need meals.
  2. Are you a medical provider or work in a medical office and you could consider donating oral thermometer devices with disposable plastic covers to shelter providers or outreach workers?
  3. Do you work for a union who utilizes N95 masks or Personal Protective Equipment and you could consider donating these supplies to us?
  4. Do you work for an entertainment company and you have excess bulk wristbands you could consider donating to us? Wristbands are how we are tracking our screening process.
  5. Are you healthy, at low risk of transmission and willing to help us with our increased personnel needs due to mandatory screening each day?
  6. Contact us if you want to learn more about these options.

Make a Donation

Can you donate to help us cover the additional costs of responding to this pandemic?

The bulk of the public health response to COVID-19 for people experiencing homelessness is falling to front line healthcare and homeless service providers.

We had a large fundraiser planned for this weekend that had to be canceled and this is a big hit to us financially on top of the additional costs.

Thank you in advance for considering a donation. We could not do this work without you.

Meg Martin, MSW, CPC
Executive Director
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Whenever we tackle tough issues at Interfaith Works we try to look at cute animals to remind us that everything is still beautiful despite the hardship. Baby kittens do the trick. <3 <3 <3
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Interfaith Works selects Meg Martin as Executive Director

12/31/2019

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A Message from the IW Board of Directors:

Meg Martin will become Executive Director of the Olympia-based Interfaith Works organization starting Jan. 1, 2020. Martin, who currently oversees the organization’s Homeless Services programs for unhoused people through the Nightly Shelter, Community Care Center and Navigation Team programs, joined Interfaith Works in 2013. She helped to transform one of Interfaith Works longest standing programs – the seasonal rotating women’s shelter -- into the full breadth of safety net services offered today.  
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She takes over at a time when the organization is preparing to grow considerably by building a 24/7 shelter facility below 65 apartments that will provide permanent supportive housing. This exciting development is in partnership with the City of Olympia, Thurston County, the State of Washington, and the Seattle-based Low Income Housing Institute. Construction is expected to begin in 2020.

“Meg is an exceptional and visionary leader,” said Board President Catherine Carmel. “We are confident in her abilities to lead our organization through this exciting transition.”
Martin is a Certified Peer Counselor and a Social Worker. She earned her Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Washington, Tacoma in 2013. Building from decades of dedicated volunteerism from the faith communities, she founded the Interfaith Works Emergency Overnight Shelter program in 2014 with two other dedicated street outreach workers - Cassie Burke and Jefferson Doyle. Under her innovative leadership the Homeless Services program has grown significantly and positioned Interfaith Works as a trusted leader in our community response to the national crisis of homelessness. 

“I am honored to have the opportunity to build from the rich history of so many who have gone before me and who have taught me so much,” Martin said. “I am excited to continue deepening and broadening relationships throughout all parts of our community – faith traditions of all kinds, business, service groups, tribal partnerships, service provider and community-based organizations, neighborhood associations, governmental partnerships and more. I love this community so much, and can’t wait to serve in this new capacity.”
Interfaith Works is a non-profit, social justice coalition made up of over 30 diverse faith traditions. The organization brings the human and financial resources of faith communities together with business and government agencies to benefit those in need. Interfaith Works will not discriminate on the basis of ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, race, physical ability, religion or religious belief, a refusal to hold a religious belief, or a refusal to actively participate in a religious practice.

​Media contact: Carolyn Cox, Board Member, 360-252-0415
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Thurston County Adopts Homeless Crisis Response Plan

11/4/2019

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HOT OF THE PRESSES! Check out the Thurston County 5 Year Homeless Crisis Response Plan
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AVAILABLE COOLING CENTERS

6/12/2019

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Click below to download a list!

cooling_center_locations_june_11_2019.pdf
File Size: 88 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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May Day Staff Appreciation

5/1/2019

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Thank you to our amazing staff team!

May 1st, or May Day, is a paid holiday for Interfaith Works Homeless Services Staff. May Day is historically a celebration of workers rights, of the hard fought wins for an 8-hour work day and less exploitive labor laws. Although we can't take a break in services because people's lives depend on our support, we want you to know how appreciative we are of our amazing crew. Thank you to all our former staff who have gone on to do amazing things and to our current crew for holding it down everyday: Jeanne, Dave, Brian “Bubz”, Sylys, Abby, Beau, Joey, Knell, Ellen, Salome, Bee, Rob, Noah, Brock, Marissa, Oscar, Joyce, Midden, Rick, Nota, Craig, Sophie, Thomas, Lev, MeG, Punkin, Cassie, Wendy, Kim, Kearsten, Xtina, Jace, Ricardo, and our management team, Brittany, Bryant, Chris, Jocelyn, Tarryn, and Ti'eri! THANK YOU ALL! <3 <3 <3
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Our staff are on the front lines everyday supporting people through crisis, connecting them to vital shelter beds, hygiene, housing, and clinical support services so that they may find their right path to a higher quality of life. Our staff lead with love, humor, compassion, pragmatism, and a strong work ethic everyday to mitigate the many harms associated with the housing crisis that our city is facing. We believe that although our work isn't easy and it has impacts in the community, inaction has much greater impact to us all, and is not an option when there are people literally dying on our streets and in wooded areas due to weather, chronic health conditions, overdose, fatal accidents, major medical events like heart attack or stroke, and more. Thank you to our stellar staff team who show up everyday to face, head-on, one of the biggest and most complex challenges our community will ever face. ​

IW Stance on May Day protests

There is a long history in most cities, as is true of Olympia, of protests on May Day that can often lead to property damage, vandalism, and in extreme cases, violence. Interfaith Works has stated before, and we would like to state again, that we unequivocally denounce violence or threats of violence of any kind. Additionally, we believe that any action that further divides our communities ability to work on solutions to our greatest challenges undermines the hard work of so many (non-profits, government, businesses, neighborhood coalitions, unhoused and housed residents, etc.), who want to see our city be safe and welcoming for all people. Further, it puts our most marginalized neighbors at higher risk of harm and criminalization. Last year we put out a statement and many parts of it still ring true today.  We would like to share those excerpts again: 

"Interfaith Works has worked for peace and justice for 45 years in this community through diverse and intentional bridge-building. Working to heal community pain and bring people together through interfaith understanding and providing emergency shelter and services to vulnerable people on the streets has always been at the core of our role in Thurston County. We are deeply saddened at the strong divisions that are present in our community today. We face huge challenges posed by population growth and a changing economy. We have a humanitarian crisis on our streets, business owners are struggling, affordable housing is severely lacking and people with serious challenges related to their mental health and substance use remain on the streets while they experience long delays seeking help from an overwhelmed health care system.

This is a time, more than ever, to draw on our individual and collective strengths to weather these challenges together, without violence and/or threats of violence tearing us apart and weakening our ability to make long-term, sustainable change. The residents of Olympia and governmental, non-profit and community leaders have a deep well of compassion and strong motivation to make positive, effective changes -- we always have. We have overcome differences many times before in this community to come together for the greater good. We’ve done this by having open and civil conversations, respecting each other even if we are not seeing things from the same side, hearing each other out and allowing for the raw emotion that is inevitably part of these complex issues to be valued. Interfaith Works remains steadfast in our commitment to bridging divides and staying grounded in our core values of peace, justice and partnership among all facets of our diverse community."

Enjoy the beautiful weather, and please be excellent to each other! Have a great May Day, everyone! 
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We are hiring!

4/24/2019

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Come join a team of committed, caring, funny, continuously growing and strengthening group of folks supporting and advocating for some of our most at-risk community members. We are looking for empathetic and self-aware individuals dedicated to being a part of a team, who can lean into supporting dynamic individuals in complex situations with unconditional respect, integrity and humor. 

We are currently accepting applications for on-call fill-in staff. Fill-in staff will be on call for day, evening or overnight shifts when support staff needs time off for any reason including vacations, personal requests for time off, or if they call in sick. Fill in staff have designated days that they are on-call and prepared to go in.

Interfaith Works Homeless Services (IW HS) provides overnight shelter services and daytime hygiene and basic needs coordination for adult individuals of all genders experiencing homelessness. IW HS is an equal opportunity employer working towards representing the community we serve and building a diverse work environment. People of color, older folks, people with disabilities and people of diverse gender expressions and identities are strongly encouraged to apply. Rooted in the principles of harm reduction, IW HS is dedicated to providing emergency services and support to those in need, not as charity but as an act of social justice. 


Visit our job page for more information. PLEASE READ THROUGH FULL JOB DESCRIPTION AND APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS. https://www.iwshelter.org/jobs.html
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Why Addiction is a Learning Disorder...

3/24/2019

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... and why it matters.

We've been hearing a lot lately around social media that as a community we need to be harder with negative consequences for people who "don't want treatment" or "don't want to help themselves" or "refuse the help they are offered". Please take 5 minutes out of your day to hear Maia Szalavitz, world renowned author, addictions specialist, and long time chaotic, heroin and cocaine user, speak about addiction as a learning disorder. Addiction by definition is not only a physical dependence to a substance, but it is also compulsively using substances DESPITE negative consequences. If we want to change the behavior of people who use substances in our community, we need to bring them in without judgement, teach them how to be responsible and self aware about how their actions affect those around them, and teach them different ways to cope with the world around them. If compulsive use despite negative consequences is the definition of addiction, why would more negative, punitive consequences get people to change their behavior? We've tried that for decades and it hasn't worked. This framework for understanding addiction helps to de-polarize the conversation of what is right and what is wrong and see this issue in a new light. If you spent time to watch Seattle is Dying, please give this video the same courtesy. To be clear, we believe there is no one pathway for people in their road to recovery. For some people abstinence based, 12 step models are vital. For many others, alternative treatments are necessary and life saving. We meet people wherever they are at on that spectrum and support them in getting connected to the resources they need and want in a  non-judgmental and de-stigmatized way. I want to acknowledge that this is a nuanced and painful discussion for many of us with loved ones or personal experience with addiction and recovery. As a community we must find ways to bridge the divide in this conversation, to recognize that what works for one will not work for another and that we all need each other to continue shifting towards a safer, more supportive community for all of us. <3 <3 <3
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Celebration of Life for Adina Rosenthal

2/3/2019

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Reflections on 4 years of Shelter

11/1/2018

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4 reflections... one for each year.  

Today, November 1, 2018 marks 4 consecutive years of shelter at the Interfaith Works Emergency Overnight Shelter at First Christian Church. That's 1,460 consecutive nights of sheltering, that's 61,320 bed nights provided, that's roughly 29,200 support staff hours worked, that's close to 200 people who have moved into permanent housing, that's thousands of phone calls, answering questions, changing beds, loads of laundry, hundreds of volunteers and community members building relationships... there is so much to reflect on. ​I tend to be long winded and lots of emotions come up when I take a moment to reflect on all the work that has happened, so I tried to keep it brief this time... but it didn't work. Indulge me! 4 reflections in 4 years. Here goes:
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Welcome cards from the first night of shelter, 4 years ago, made by loving community members.
  • Vulnerability is transformative.
I think it's safe to say that people who have fought for resilience through serious hardship have been transformed by their experiences. The most resilient people I know have survived unimaginable hardships. Part of their stories include moments of being stripped down, broken open, being physically alone or maybe in a crowded place feeling a profoundly lonely void that can't be filled. There's generally at least one other person (or furry being) that was a key support beam during the crisis that kept us alive. There tends to be a moment where the truth smacked us so hard in the face that we had a life or death choice to make... Turn towards it or run the hell away and lose people we love. Turning towards hardship and choosing to see the daily transformations in our guests and in ourselves due to the relationships we have formed through this work, has been dramatically transformative in both tiny and gigantic ways. I am forever changed.
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A guest sharing conflict mediation skill building with the shelter community.
  • Hold on tight to the small wins. 
​I'm reading a book right now called The Age Of Overwhelm: Strategies For The Long Haul by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky. It's a great book, and it points out just how very overwhelming our world is today. News, media, the environment, politics, poverty, violence, social media, raising children, grief... it seems that no matter what your profession, daily work or life routine entails most of us are struggling to keep our head's above water. We talk a lot about celebrating the small wins at IW. Part of that is because we believe that shining a light on daily successes helps us subvert the overarching narrative in our society about what "success" means. It helps us remember each others humanity and gives us daily reminders that every life is sacred and worth celebrating, regardless of circumstance. The other part about holding tight to the small wins is that they stay with us, they help us metabolize trauma, and they build our collective armor over time. This slowly cultivated armor builds resiliency so that when things get hard -- like really hard -- we have have the resources we need to bounce back and re-ground as quickly as possible. 
  • Our work reverberates.​
We always aim to hire people who reflect the demographics of the guests we have at the Nightly Shelter and the Community Care Center. This means hiring marginalized people. People who have experienced homelessness, people of color, people over 50 years old, people with physical, mental health, and substance use related challenges, trauma survivors, people with permanent disabilities, people who are LGBTQQIATS+, etc. ​We try to give ​​opportunities to our staff to gain meaningful work experience, build vital life skills, and we do our darnedest to pay people a living wage (this is getting harder everyday with extreme cost of living increases/cuts in social service funding--a post for another day). Of our original staff team, 5 of us 
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The IW Emergency Overnight Shelter original staff team. Five of the 11 are still employed with IW Homeless Services at the Shelter or the CCC.
(Jeanne, Dave, Tarryn, Brittany and myself) are still employed at IW. That's 45%! That's a really big deal for such high stress and emotionally demanding work with an dramatically high turnover rate nationwide. What I love though, is that of the staff who have moved on; Jack and Max are in nursing school, Cassie completed certification as an EMT and is working towards becoming a paramedic, Krista and Tarryn (Tarryn is still with us, but still...) are in MSW school, Jeff is a school social worker for homeless youth in a rural, underserved county, Sadie is a radical, body positive esthetician, Rebecca is an artist and activist who is part of an Indigenous artist collective and recently performed at the SAM as part of the Double Exposure Exhibit, Kai is in school to become a doctor of eastern medicine with a focus in acupuncture, Denver started grad school in community organizing, economic development and city planning, Dan is the veteran's case manager at Drexel II, Kipp is involved with a long standing syringe exchange program in Philadelphia, Olive is a core staff member at the Thurston County Food Bank, Eva is a parent and director at Together working to advance opportunities for marginalized kids, Colin works at Rosie's Place and has been with CYS for years, Jenny Lee is a Downtown Emergency Services Center (DESC) Supervisor to case managers at the cutting edge Seattle Navigation Center, Simon is supporting at risk youth through a wilderness survival program in Pennsylvania, Aaron works for a youth shelter in NYC, and Ella is the primary caregiver to a family member who suffered a major medical event. The amazing thing is that this list isn't even inclusive of all the amazing things that our staff have gone on to do, and influence in the world beyond the walls of the IW EOS. Thank you for letting us be a step along your way to greatness.
  • We can and must do better. 
Thurston County is growing at an enormous rate. We are currently seeing the push and pull of what it means to be a small, under resourced town, with big city issues playing out on our streets and in our neighborhoods everyday. While Interfaith Works does our best to carve out spaces for people who are on the streets to just be, to be included as part of the broader community, to reduce isolation, to hold up a mirror to our community about the realities of how many people are suffering right in our own backyards, to get access to what they need on their terms, to see everyone as human and worthy of love, we often fall short. We are not perfect. We have a long way to go in our understanding of how racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism and all the intersections of oppression cloud our judgement and the way we see people in our community. We don't always treat our guests or each other with the unconditional respect that is so core to our values as a program because this work is emotionally draining, we're human, and we all bring our baggage to the table at some point. Our work is messy and has impacts on other sectors in the community. We are operating within an oppressive system that creates more problems than it solves, and requires the under resourced "solutions" to eternally push beyond our means, yet never get ahead of the issues we are dedicating our lives to solving. Admitting that this work is dichotomous with both light and shadow sides, with tides that rise and fall, with complex outcomes... Doesn't mean that we have failed, or our work isn't important, or that none of our efforts have brought us closer to understanding what a solution for each person experiencing homelessness could look like. It means that we are willing to walk into a consciousness that doesn't have a linear pathway in or out. It doesn't have a playbook yet because we haven't evolved enough as a society to write it. It means that we are turning toward the truth which is scary, and requires strong, beautifully cultivated armor. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and challenged us along the way. We could not have gotten here without you. <3
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A note from a shelter guest on the appreciation board that we call the Shout Out wall.
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4th Annual Up In Smoke BBQ!

7/22/2018

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Join us! July 28th, 2018, 1pm!

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    Meg Martin

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    Meg Martin, LICSW, CPC, is the Executive Director for The Interfaith Works.


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