This Saturday, local celebrities, athletes and community leaders will go to bat at Safeco Field during United Way of King County’s third annual All-Star Softball Classic for Youth. They’ll play alongside formerly-homeless youth who epitomize why this event is so important for our community and why the Raikes Foundation is such a proud sponsor.Read More
Contrary to what you might think, the Canadian context is not that much different than the United States when it comes to complex social issues. Sure, we have different names for things and we tend to add the word ‘eh’ to the ends of sentences, but beyond that we have more in common than not. Given the recent important developments in the Washington state with the Homeless Youth Prevention and Protection Act, we were invited to share some of our Canadian learnings and activities to prevent, reduce and end youth homelessness north of the border.Read More
Editor’s Note: After surviving more than a decade of her youth on the streets Trai Williams has become an important voice for change through the Mockingbird Society’s Youth Advocates Ending Homelessness program, which the Raikes Foundation supports as a grantee.Read More
Before you can solve a problem, you need to understand it. You need to know its full scope, its causes, its exacerbating factors, and its consequences. This a fundamental reality of social change, but how do you do this for a complex problem that, by its very nature, is hidden from society? That’s the challenge we face each day with youth homelessness as the young people we seek to help often distrust the very systems and individuals in place to support them. And who can blame them after the abuse, neglect and fear most have encountered?Read More
More than 200 young people from around Washington state gathered in Olympia on Friday to meet with elected officials and advocate for policies that directly affect their lives. Many related their experiences in the foster care system and some, such as members of The Mockingbird Society’s Youth Advocates Ending Homelessness (YAEH), will give voice to the thousands of youth in our state who unfortunately have experienced the crisis of homelessness.Read More
In her recent testimony before the Washington State Legislature, Tricia Raikes emphasized that because youth homelessness isn’t confined by city or county lines, it requires a community-wide solution.Read More
Tricia has been honored the last two weeks to join Washington First Lady Trudi Inslee, Mockingbird Society youth advocates, Building Changes and members of the Washington Coalition for Homeless Youth Advocacy (WACHYA) as they testified before the Washington State House and Senate in support of the Read More
Expertise comes in many forms. There’s the kind gained through years of study and research, or the kind sought out through hands-on training. But there’s also the type that’s involuntarily hoisted on us from sometimes-harsh life experiences. Each kind provides unique value, and all are necessary when tackling an issue as complex as homelessness.Read More
