There is an emergency being ignored in King County | Letter

Published 3:09 pm Wednesday, November 25, 2015

There actually is an emergency, but I am not feeling it in the King County response. I have dedicated the last seven years of my life to bringing people inside and to providing safety on the Eastside. I helped start Sophia Way, a shelter for adult women in Bellevue. I worked to get the emergency shelter for women and families on the Eastside open and extend the season over the last six years. I helped start a Safe Parking program at my church, Lake Washington United Methodist Church (LWUMC), and we open the building with volunteers when it is below freezing, as it has been this week.

I am a volunteer. I am on the board of Sophia Way. I am a member of the congregation of LWUMC. I have treated people sleeping outside as an emergency for years.

There are two winter shelters for the Eastside, serving Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Sammamish, Issaquah and surrounding cities. One shelter for men and one for women and families. The only emergency shelter for women and families on the Eastside is currently at Redmond United Methodist Church and it has room for 50 people. The last two nights they were full and turned families away, at night and in the freezing weather.

This is not acceptable. This is an emergency. You know it. There is a declaration but do you feel it? Do you feel the anguish of a parent at the door of the shelter told they can’t bring their children inside?

I am panicked and I need help. I have done what I can do. I need the government and my neighbors to actually act like it is an emergency. Open government buildings, open other churches, keep the malls open – provide a warm space for everyone – tonight. People are dying in King County. God forgive us all if the next person to die is a child who was told there is no room.

Karina O’Malley, Kirkland