What I Learned at the Roots Gala (Besides How to Win Raffles)

...281 days to go...

At Thursday night’s ROOTS Rise Up gala, Jen and I won a $3,000 gift certificate from the event’s outstanding caterer, Gourmondo, in a raffle. I guess good things happen when you show up for a good cause! Supposedly it’s good for a 20-person dinner party (complete with open bar), which does sound pretty fun. But it also would feel really out of touch with what I’m trying to accomplish this year. So I’ve been spending the week thinking about what we might use it for that’d be helpful for the cause (stay tuned!).

But let me back up. As I’ve written before, ROOTS provides shelter and support for up to 45 young adults aged 18-25. Attending its gala, we got to see firsthand examples of the difference ROOTS makes in these young adults’ lives via two speakers: Gino and Gilbert. Both speakers had relatively brief stays at the shelter and used it as a launchpad to secure jobs with upside potential and full-time permanent housing. It certainly feels good as a volunteer and a donor to see outcomes of self-sufficient young people, all brought about with just a little bit of help.

The success stories didn’t surprise me, but I learned one thing that did: it costs $135 for ROOTS to provide one person with a safe bed for the night. That’s $4,000 per month - even with Seattle’s insanely high rents, that’s easily enough for a nice apartment.

If you’ve been inside ROOTS, it’s obvious that the shelter runs lean and every dollar is being stretched as far as it can go. ROOTS operates out of a former fraternity house with little natural light. Sometimes it seems as if there is no margin on anything: today at breakfast for instance, we ran out of both sugar and creamer for coffee. To save on costs, the organization uses volunteers like me whenever possible, including on some overnight shifts. This is simply the cost of providing shelter for homeless young adults in Seattle.

This cost highlights the enormous social upside of the work this organization is doing. For every young adult who can Rise Up to permanent housing (to borrow the title of the gala) with the support of ROOTS, the savings to our city is massive. And since the guests are young adults, that savings can continue for decades.

I was happy to wake up the morning after the gala to an email informing us that ROOTS raised over $220,000 from the gala! Jen and I donated $5,000 - around 35 nights of shelter. To her infinite credit, Jen pushed me over dinner to go higher than that, but I pushed back just a bit. We’ll likely give more before the end of the year, but I’m still trying to better understand the outcomes produced by emergency shelters, particularly those like ROOTS which also provide transitional services like case management, nursing support, and the like. I’d like to understand factors like the percentage of guests who find permanent housing, the percentage who maintain it longer-term, and the average lengths of guests stays. These questions distinguish temporary relief from lasting change - both valuable, but different in ways that matter.

For now, I’m grateful ROOTS gives young adults a place to stabilize and plan their next steps. I’m grateful that we, collectively, were able to meet the fundraising target. And yes, I’m grateful for that raffle win too.