A true home for Family Services agency

For more than 100 years, the nonprofit Family Services, one of the oldest social-service agencies in King County, has been quietly championing programs and services for homeless families and those on the brink of homelessness.

Housing, individual and group counseling, domestic-violence-intervention treatment and a child-care center for homeless youngsters are but a few of the programs Family Services staff juggle at more than a dozen rented facilities scattered around the county.

Established in 1892 as the Bureau of Associated Charities of Seattle, the agency has changed names nearly a dozen times over the years and has secured housing for thousands, but has never had a home of its own. That's about to change.

In about two weeks, Family Services will break ground for a $16 million, three-story central facility — 35,000 square feet of space — in the vacant 1900 block of Rainier Avenue South, near 23rd Avenue South.

The lot was, until recently, home to an old ice-cream factory that had been there since 1947. Family Services bought the property a year ago.

"The goal is to pull [agency programs] together in one place to better serve clients," said agency spokeswoman Patricia Gray. "These families often have very little resources, and so to send them all over town, with kids in tow, is not serving them the best that we could.

"It's an investment into the community with the potential to change the lives of families and children for generations to come."

A building name has already been selected, the Rotary Support Center for Families, to reflect major support from Seattle Rotary, which donated more than $4 million to the building campaign.

The Gates Foundation also has kicked in $1 million, and the Michigan-based Kresge Foundation has committed a $950,000 challenge grant if Family Services is able to raise $3 million more to cap its $12.5 million capital campaign. So far, nearly $9 million has been raised.

The agency hopes to attract funding from more private and corporate donors. But it is also reaching for its goal penny by penny. A number of school groups and other local youth organizations are conducting penny drives to salute Family Services' 20 years of child-care service for homeless youngsters.

Volunteers hope their collection jars will raise 2 million pennies — $20,000 — for a child-care center in the new building.

"We're not going to turn anything away. No donation is too small," Gray said.

Last year, Family Services, a United Way agency, served more than 6,000 clients.

"Our vision is to end homelessness for 5,000 families over the next 10 years," said Ruthann Howell, Family Services' chief executive officer and president since 1990.

One of the biggest challenges right now, she said, is partnering with enough public- and private-housing developers "so that we are able to have enough units to house our homeless families permanently." Another challenge is recruiting enough qualified case managers and therapists.

Of the agency's paid staff of 120, more than 80 percent hold advanced professional degrees, Howell said.

She said the agency's services have always come before its own housing.

"The desire was to push every dollar out the door, putting it into service to the community and to our clients," she said. "We just never invested in our own home."

So, why now? "We looked at what the need was, and we also looked at our own internal capacity and what we were able to do," Howell said. "But also, when you start to look at costs of occupancy, it will cut down on our costs renting from others."

Family Services' capital campaign precedes Seattle Rotary's 100th anniversary next year. The opening of the new building is projected for June 2009, coinciding with Rotary's centennial celebration.

The groundbreaking will be at noon May 30 at the site.

Family Services believes families are the invisible side of the homelessness issue in this community.

"Families are the fastest-growing portion of the homeless population, what with the increased cost of living and wages outpaced by expenses," Howell said. "The crisis of family homelessness is only getting worse.

"I think it's a crisis when you have thousands of kids growing up without a permanent home."