SEATTLE, Dec. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — United Way of King County, the King County Bar Association and the Seattle Mariners announced today the launch of a $3 million community partnership to help tackle King County’s homelessness crisis. Home Base will reduce the number of people who lose their homes due to eviction, which is a leading cause of homelessness. The prevention program works to keep thousands of people in their homes by providing legal representation, flexible funding and case management.
The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty reports that evictions are the leading cause of homelessness. A September 2018 study by the King County Bar Association and Seattle Women’s Commission found that 87% of eviction filings were because of nonpayment of rent with roughly three quarters of those cases involving an average of $1,237 or less owed to the landlord.
For many low-income renters, the combination of scarce resources and high rent means no flexibility when facing an emergency like a serious illness, a death in the family or temporary job loss. There’s often little time for renters to come up with rent as Washington law allows landlords to file evictions against tenants in as little as 3 days after rent is due.
“United Way knows that our community won’t begin to see a difference in the crisis until we can stop more people from becoming homeless in the first place,” said Jon Fine, President and CEO of United Way of King County. “Through Home Base, we are working upstream by providing eviction prevention. This is a game changer and we’re so pleased the Seattle Mariners and King County Bar Association have stepped up in a big way.”
While the Seattle Mariners are generously providing the initial funding, United Way is committed to identifying and leveraging additional funding from the public and private sector to scale Home Base to a 3 year, $10 mil program.
For more information on donating to United Way of King County to make sure that people have homes, students graduate and families are financially stable, click here or visit United Way of King County’s website at https://www.uwkc.org/donate.
CONTACT:
Sabrina Register, Assoc. Dir. of Public Relations
206-461-8414
[email protected]
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SOURCE United Way of King County
