Youth, young adults, and alumni with lived experience have the wisdom and expertise we need to develop effective solutions to youth and young adult homelessness. Roel is a lived experience consultant, and this is his story of why he advocates for young people. Here’s the thing about working with A Way Home Washington—To me, it […]
Posted on March 18, 2020 in Youth and Young Adult Engagement
Youth, young adults, and alumni with lived experience have the wisdom and expertise we need to develop effective solutions to youth and young adult homelessness. Sunshine is a lived experience expert working with our Anchor Community Team in Yakima, and this is her story of why she advocates for young people. My past has influenced […]
Posted on March 18, 2020 in Legislative Advocacy
On March 12, the legislative session concluded with many victories for the movement to end youth and young adult homelessness. I’m grateful to our legislative champions who passed all our policy and budget priorities. At a time when people experiencing homelessness, including youth and young adults, are especially vulnerable to a public health crisis, we […]
Posted on February 18, 2020 in Anchor Community Initiative, Behind the Scenes
Data is a critical component of the Anchor Community Initiative. Our Data & Evaluation Director, Liz, explains what data communities are collecting and how it will help communities end youth and young adult homelessness and achieve equitable outcomes. Ending youth and young adult homelessness requires accurate data that tells communities how many young people are […]
Posted on February 18, 2020 in Jim's Vision, Legislative Advocacy
Update: The House and Senate have both included $500,000 towards the Centralized Diversion Fund in their budgets! Please join us in thanking our elected officials for this investment. Email and tweet your legislators here: https://p2a.co/HVFll02 We know that youth and young adult homelessness has many faces. It can look like the high school student who […]
Posted on February 10, 2020 in Anchor Community Initiative, Behind the Scenes
For the past ten months, our four Anchor Communities have had a singular focus: answering yes to all questions on the Youth and Young Adult By-Name List scorecard and reaching quality, real-time data. In February, two of our Anchor Communities reached exciting milestones: Walla Walla became the first Anchor Community to say yes to all […]
Posted on January 10, 2020 in Legislative Advocacy
Recently, the CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Nan Roman, shared the three elements she’s observed in communities that have successfully ended homelessness: data, funding, and buy-in from political leadership. Throughout the year, we work hard to make sure communities around the state have all three of these elements. During the legislative session, […]
Posted on December 16, 2019 in Youth and Young Adult Engagement
For the past nine years, I’ve been working to end youth and young adult homelessness in different capacities. I’ve worked in advocacy, direct services and creating partnerships. From all these experiences, I’ve learned that to transform systems, we need to listen and bring people together. I started my work in this field at The Mockingbird […]
Posted on December 11, 2019 in Uncategorized
Our Executive Director, Jim Theofelis, has dedicated his life to helping young people, as an advocate, a clinician and a leader in the movement to reform foster care and end youth and young adult homelessness. He reflects on what 2019 meant for A Way Home Washington and the movement to end youth and young adult […]
Posted on December 11, 2019 in Equity
At A Way Home Washington, our core values include equity, youth partnership, trauma-informed practice and a data-driven culture. Our Data and Evaluation Director, Liz, writes about how data informs our work at A Way Home Washington. “You don’t count unless you’re counted.” It’s a common refrain in the data community, and for me it gets […]