Press Coverage

The Spokane County Commissioners gave $20,000 to Volunteers of America for a homeless solution that would relocate people to families and services outside Spokane.

Volunteers of America, $1,539,214; Catholic Charities, $1,447,301; YWCA, $663,967; City of Spokane, $418,456; SNAP, $264,921.

Fawn Schott credits her community and her mentors with her success. For her, being CEO of Volunteers of America is a way of giving back and lifting others up.

The blankets were donated to two groups based in Spokane: the Crosswalk Youth Shelter and Women’s Hearth. Crosswalk serves runaway and homeless youth in Eastern Washington. Women’s Hearth is a drop-in day center for women who have experienced poverty, trauma, or homelessness.

At least 20 families facing homelessness will have a permanent place to call home this season.

As Kebby Ali walks through downtown Spokane, she understands the struggle of women she sees living on the street.

Facing intense demand, Volunteers of America will move into its new young adult shelter before renovations on the building are completed.

Volunteers of America is shifting gears to show them what a life without chronic homelessness is like. They are opening shelters away from the distractions and influences of downtown.

Let me tell you the story of Emily.

She was dropped off by her mother to live at Volunteers of America (VOA) Crosswalk Youth Shelter when she was 15. Her mother was moving to Florida and her daughter was not part of the plan. Emily stayed with us, celebrating birthdays, holidays and high school graduation in our shelter. The Crosswalk staff became her family as she longed for the one she was born into but was turned away from.

After more than 35 years in downtown Spokane, the Crosswalk Youth Shelter is planning to move east.

Volunteers of America unveiled plans and launched a fundraising campaign this week in support of a new 45,000-square-foot shelter near Spokane Community College.

Volunteers of America isn’t waiting for a new young adult shelter to help young adults.

The nonprofit is already offering beds to people 18 to 24 years old at Women’s Hearth while its leaders work to finalize a permanent location for a new facility. It has also reserved space for young adults at its Hope House adult women’s shelter.

Volunteers of America of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho received a $180,000 donation from Providence Health Care.

The Spokane area was awarded a $2.7 million grant from the state Department of Commerce to open up a homeless shelter specifically for young adults, according to City of Spokane Communications Director Brian Coddington.

More than 1,800 women experience homelessness in Spokane each day and Transitions’ is working to help meet their basic needs with their “Mardi Bras” event.

When Spokane’s Crosswalk teen shelter hired behavioral health counselor Kaitlyn Lee last year with money from a new state grant, part of her job was to shoot pool in the common room with the teenagers. Hanging around, eating lunch with the residents, or simply making herself available by sitting at the front desk is an important part of the job of a counselor...

Each year in Washington state, about 1,800 young adults find themselves unstably housed within a year of leaving a publicly funded system such as foster care or a criminal justice facility...

Employees at Volunteers of America are traversing the area this week dropping off gift bags with book-themed cupcakes to say thank you to their volunteers who usually staff the book tables at the Christmas Bureau.

Spokane County is one of four counties participating in Washington state’s Anchor Community Initiative, designed to help young people like Elsa.

Hope House still needs more than a few finishing touches, but Volunteers of America leaders can begin to see the emergency shelter as a future home, for more than 100 women who are homeless and the staff who will serve them.

Spokane, Wash. - Spokane comes together as a community to help out with this first ever Volunteerfest.

SPOKANE, Wash. - Women fleeing abusive relationships, struggling with addiction or mental illness have found safety for 20 years inside Hope House -- a shelter operated by Volunteers of America.

Inside Crosswalk Teen Shelter – Spokane’s oldest emergency youth shelter – there’s a common area on the first floor no bigger than a school lunch room. It’s a space of all trades, jack of none: eat, learn, make friends, play and even sleep. Flanked by rows of hideaway beds that look like large white wardrobes, when the sun goes down, so too do the metal furniture handles near the top, revealing 18 hideaway beds. “We’re just bursting at the seams,” said Fawn Schott, president and CEO of Volunteers of America, which runs the shelter. “We have no more space.”

The city had $30 million to spend on homeless and housing programs. Catholic Charities, Open Doors and Volunteers of America’s Crosswalk teen shelter were three of 24 programs that received less funding than they had previously. Twenty-one other programs received the same level of funding or more for homeless services.