Hopelink: Strengthening Our Community One Link at a Time

I RECENTLY ATTENDED ’s 16th Annual Reaching Out Benefit Luncheon at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Center as the guest of the Kirkland author Leah Kliger.   Hopelink is a charitable organization that provides many exceptional social services to North and East King County residents.  There are many reasons to get behind Hopelink.  What I most admire about its cause, though, is its commitment to eliminating the growing homelessness problem in our community.

Washington, according to a recent study released by The National Alliance to End Homelessness, has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country.  And according to The Committee to End Homelessness, on any given night, more than 8,000 people in King County alone are homeless, nearly 3,000 of which are homeless families with children.  These statistics highlight the ample reasons to support Hopelink’s charitable endeavors in our community.

And yet for all that Hopelink provides, there is no uniform answer to our homelessness epidemic.  Homelessness is a complicated problem with many different causes that requires an equally nuanced solution.  For example, chronically homeless people – those unaccompanied individuals who have been continuously homeless for over one year – mostly suffer from disabling conditions like mental illness, substance abuse, developmental disability, or physical illness.  For this group, an isolated instance of charitable giving is not a likely solution.  Rather, considerable efforts must be directed at treating underlying mental and other health issues if any headway is to be made toward recovery. 

At the opposite end of the homelessness spectrum, there are the temporarily homeless: these are individuals who suffer a temporary set back, but can live briefly with a friend or relative.  For this group, their expansive network of affluent friends and family often render communal charity simply unnecessary. 

But there is a contingent of individuals for whom acts of charity from the community like those provided by Hopelink really are a solution.  These are the families down the street without an extended network of friends or relatives who suddenly lose a job and must chose between paying the mortgage and buying groceries.  These are also the elderly among us whose mounting medical bills have slowly drowned them beneath the poverty line and who cannot afford electricity.  Services offered by Hopelink for these individuals provide more than just hope: they offer salvation.

Hopelink’s name brings to mind the American philosopher William James’ time-honored truism, “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.”  Our community too is like a chain that is only as strong as its weakest link.  By helping those families and individuals in need we make our community stronger; we strengthen our chain one link at a time.

For more information about Hopelink and to get involved, visit http://www.hope-link.org/. 

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Trent Latta is an attorney and current member of Kirkland’s Cultural Council.  He may be reached at TLatta@mcdougaldlaw.com.