Pallet Shelter Commemorates Its 100th Village

The company creating transitional housing for the homeless will build on tribal ground

EVERETT, WA, USA, December 20, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ --

– The 100th Pallet shelter village will open soon, on the Tulalip Tribe Reservation in Washington State. The build will commence on December 20th and will include a blessing of the land and a blessing of the Pallet cabins. Homelessness amongst indigenous First Nations citizens has been a difficult challenge to solve, and Pallet hopes that erecting this village will be an important first step.

The Tulalip Village is one of only a few Pallet deployments on tribal land, where

homelessness is more common due to intergenerational factors like overcrowding and lack of housing. As of 2019, Native Americans account for approximately 1.5% of North America’s population, yet they make up more than 10% of the homeless population nationally.

“Native Americans experience the second highest rate of homelessness among all racial groups,” said Rochelle Lubbers, Chief Administrative Officer at The Tulalip Tribes. “The partnership with Pallet gives our unhoused tribal members a safe space to stay while they work to get back on their feet.”

Pallet is a public benefit corporation with the mission of addressing both unemployment and homelessness. The shelter villages it has built are situated throughout the US, with each having approximately 40 cabins. The transitional cabins are operated by various service providers including the Salvation Army, Hope of the Valley, Urban Alchemy, and many others. The service providers oversee the property and organize meals, social services, and other support resources.

“When it comes to homelessness, there’s a shortage of housing,” said Pallet CEO Amy King. “But there’s no shortage of need for immediate transitional housing that allows people to maintain personal space and privacy within a healing community environment.”

Pallet shelter villages consist of both private sleeping cabins and separate bathrooms and community rooms for meals and services. They are designed to rapidly address unsheltered populations with a resource net of on-site social services, a locking door, heating and air conditioning, as well as food, showers, laundry, and more, to help people transition to permanent housing. “No one should go unsheltered when a shelter village can be built in a day,” affirmed King.

The shelter villages built by Pallet, with their single- or double-capacity cabins, can be a healthier alternative than traditional mass care centers. These shelter villages also offer pandemic-related services and amenities, such as on-site vaccination clinics, Covid-19 testing, masks, and more.

In 2016 King and her husband Brady King founded Pallet as a tool to provide second chance employment while building dignified temporary housing for the unsheltered population. More than 80 percent of Pallet’s staff have faced the hardship of incarceration, homelessness, or addiction. These workers with lived experience were largely responsible for coming up with the concept of what would become Pallet. They emphasized such things as the value of having a door that locks to keep valuables safe while going to work. A comfortable bed, electricity, heating, air conditioning and support services all help a person regain dignity and put their life on track.

“We plan to continue our work in many more communities to address the crisis that homelessness presents to many of our most at-risk citizens,” said King.

For more information, visit www.palletshelter.com.

Or contact Mike Mena at 310-913-0625 or mike@ileanainternational.com.