Dembowski thanks Mary’s Place, welcomes Lake City Partners to reopen Northshore shelter

August 21, 2024

King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski hosted representatives from the City of Kenmore and other partners on Wednesday to announce and welcome a new senior women’s shelter in what was formerly the Mary’s Place Northshore shelter.

The new senior women’s shelter, which will be operated by Lake City Partners Ending Homelessness, is possible thanks to $675,000 in funding secured by Dembowski in King County’s spring supplemental budget.

Mary’s Place, which serves families experiencing homelessness, previously operated its Northshore shelter in the same location, a former King County Sheriff’s Office precinct building, but recently changed its model away from congregate shelter and decided to close their Kenmore location.

“Operating out of the county’s mothballed Kenmore precinct office, Mary’s Place has been a tremendous partner over the last seven years, welcoming over500 families and nearly 1,000 children in our Northshore community and helping 191 families secure stable housing,” said Councilmember Rod Dembowski. “Unfortunately their move left virtually no emergency shelter space in North King County, so I went to work with City of Kenmore officials and Lake City Partners – which already successfully runs the Oaks shelter in Shoreline – to see if a new shelter could be opened in the Kenmore location. We then worked to identify $675,000 in the county’s budget to fund this project and I was thrilled to host today’s announcement event.”

Lake City Partners immediately responded to the inquiry with a plan to re-open the facility as a senior women’s shelter to provide a safe place for women over the age of 60 currently experiencing homelessness. The goal is to provide the seniors services to facilitate their transition into permanent, shared housing in a period of under a year. To do so, the shelter will leverage Lake City Partner’s existing programs and relationships with local service providers to connect senior women with needed services, promote co-habitation skills, and help them transition into permanent housing.

“Lake City Partners are thrilled to be opening a Senior Women's Shelter program in Kenmore,” said William Towey, Executive Director of Lake City Partners Ending Homelessness. “One of our fastest growing subgroups of unsheltered clients are very low-income seniors. This new shelter program will provide a much-needed increase in capacity to our North King County homelessness response -- one that serves senior women, a particularly vulnerable subset of our unsheltered clients.”

The new shelter is anticipated to open by the end of 2024 and will have space for up to 35 senior women at a time.

"After seven years of partnership with Mary's Place, we are excited to welcome Lake City Partners to the old police precinct,” said Kenmore Mayor Nigel Herbig. “They have worked in Kenmore before, and will ensure that the building continues to be used to help our neighbors experiencing homelessness."

At Wednesday’s announcement, Councilmember Dembowski hosted City of Kenmore officials, Mary’s Place CEO Dominique Alex, King County Council Budget Chair Girmay Zahilay, elected officials from throughout North King County, representatives from Lake City Partners and the North Urban Human Services Alliance, and King County’s Department of Community and Human Services Director Kelly Rider to thank Mary’s Place for its years of operating the shelter and to welcome Lake City Partners.