Finding Shelter with Homeless Youth

On a recent spring night, Kraken forwards Matty Beniers and Freddy Gaudreau are talking with a couple on the front patio of the ROOTS Young Adult Shelter in Seattle’s University District neighborhood. Beniers flashes a huge grin when the young man asks if he gets in fights on the ice. Gaudreau smiles when the female companion wants to know his number and why did he pick it? The veteran Gaudreau explained he prefers the number 11, but it was taken earlier in his NHL career, so he subtracted the “11” from 100 to arrive at his current jersey number 89. 

The Kraken teammates, along with fellow forward Ryan Winterton, were on hand at ROOTS  (Rising Out of the Shadows) to form an assembly line serving up customized burrito bowls for dinner. Director of development and engagement Tori Muzyk wanted the Kraken players to get to know some of the night’s shelter guests awaiting the dinner’s 8:30 p.m. open doors. The mingling was entirely on point because as the night unfolds it is clear Muzyk and Riley Pimentel, director of shelter and programs, and multiple staffers and volunteers are familiar with the young adults taking refuge at ROOTS. 

“It really seemed like the staff and volunteers knew all their names, knew where they come from and their dogs’ names [the shelter accepts pets],” said Beniers. “They are committed to building a community for those kids, who don't seem like they have a community to fall back on.”

Beniers, 23, and Winterton, 22, are both in the 18-to-25-year-old range of ROOTS shelter guests, a targeted age group aimed at stopping the generational cycle of homelessness. Muzyk said while some individuals in older demographics are harder to persuade to come inside shelters, she’s “never met a 19-year-old who doesn’t want to sleep in a warm bed.” 

Both Beniers and Winterton are aware that ending youth homelessness in the greater Seattle area is one of action pillars established by One Roof Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena. 

“We’re meeting kids who are basically our age in that situation,” said Beniers. “We’ve got a house to go home to sleep, a roof over our heads and food to eat, right? ... It was nice to have some conversations with [the night’s shelter guests]. I was excited we were there.” 

Like his pair of teammates, Winterton said it was his first time in a shelter. He was happy to accept Beniers’ invite. 

“It’s pretty cool what they’re doing at ROOTS,” said Winterton. “I didn’t know what to think going into the night. But I have to say what they’re doing with a minimal budget is remarkable. They are making it work.”

Volunteers Fuel ROOTS Success 

Muzyk explained the budget feat while taking the Kraken players on a brief tour of the facility, which is a former fraternity house on the University of Washington campus currently undergoing a major renovation that will upgrade quarters and add a number of independent support living units to encourage forging new career and life paths. As the players toured the shelter, they noted some living spaces beyond the sleeping areas that encourage guests to read a book, play table games and sit at communal tables while dining (both dinner and breakfast are available). 

“The average shelter that operates at a 45-bed capacity open 365 nights a year, all of which is what we do, has a salary and operating budget of $4.5 million, give or take,” Muzyk told the Kraken trio. “We do what we do here on a $1.85 million budget. That is entirely because of volunteers. We have 165 unique individuals who come into this building every week as volunteers. Any given evening or morning, there might be five-to-12 depending on the day and need.  They help us get shelter deep cleaned and open for the night. They help serve dinner. 

“We have upwards of three, sometimes five, staff depending on the night. Overnight awake staff are present and attentive to ensure a safe environment.  We have cameras throughout the space. If guests see anything, if they have a question, if something happens, there are always awake individuals here.” 

Learning the ‘Why’ 

For his part, Gaudreau said he deeply appreciated “the why behind the shelter.” 

“Their ’Why’ is trying to get the younger generation to hopefully give them the best chance and hope to figure their stuff out and help them,” said Gaudreau. ”Whether it is finding a job or an apartment. It is about giving them a chance to still eat a warm meal and sleep in a bed. I thought it was really good to see personally. Even when we were outside at first, it was good to realize these are normal people. Whether it is some sort of bad luck that happened to them, they're still beautiful people trying to find their way in life.”

ROOTS has two full-time case managers (with the hope of a third by year-end) who work with shelter guests on matters ranging from how to obtain proper ID to looking for employment to mental health assessment and support. It is a founding principle that goes beyond the basics of shelter and in fact can continue even as a shelter guest finds housing. 

“We currently have four substance abuse and mental health therapy specific therapists that we provide, that we pay, that our guests can see,” said Muzyk. “There's no limit on the maximum of how many times they can go to these people. They're accessible to them. We also have the Harborview’s youth and young adult clinic that comes to the shelter twice a week to provide on-site medical care and treatment. We have a dental clinic that comes once a month. Bishop's hair cutters come twice a month.” 

The shelter’s commitment to developing relationships with guests and making them feel seen and cared for was honored at a Kraken home game in early March. That’s when ROOTS executive director Erin Chapman-Smith was celebrated as a “Hero of the Deep” for her leadership and the collective work by the shelter along with the One Roof Foundation, receiving a $32,000 donation to support young adults accessing services.

Breaking Free from Barriers 

Providing shelter access to young adults is a critical mission for ROOTS, which has the lowest barriers of entry in the Seattle area. 

“The lowest barrier means we do not require a form of identification to be able to enter shelter,” said Muzyk. “Over 97 percent of our first-time shelter guests here at ROOTS have no form of ID on their person when they arrive. If we were to say, ‘Hey, you actually have to show us something with your name and your date of birth on it,’ we wouldn’t have barely anyone to serve. 

“The second kind of barrier that we've always removed since we opened in 1999 was that you do not have to prove sobriety to enter the space. We do have some parameters, such as if you have anything that could be mistaken as substances, any device that can be utilized to ingest or engage in substance use and or anything that could be utilized as a weapon, we ask that you hand that into us for the night. That way, we can maintain safety in this space. But again, we really want to ensure that our guests understand we are not here to tell them that what they're doing is or isn't wrong.” 

Part of maintaining safe spaces at ROOTS is training the staff and volunteers to deal with difficult situations. 

“Because we are the lowest-barrier shelter for young adults in Washington, sometimes we see folks with higher needs,” said Riley Pimentel, the aforementioned director of shelter and programs. “So, our staff are trained on verbal de-escalation, mental health crisis, how to intervene in a trauma-informed way.

“For example, a lot of folks who are experiencing a crisis are often met with us saying, ‘We're not scared, we'll figure this out with you.’ We can help [the person] calm down without retaliation and being afraid. That's super important to me. I come from crisis work [in hospitals], so being able to do that in this space has meant a lot.”