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Seattle’s crisis in unsheltered homelessness is evident most days in the University District as too many young people find themselves without shelter, jobs and other support. Thanks to Washington State House Speaker Frank Chopp, committed community partners, passionate students and innovative faculty, UW launched a new effort this past Sunday to get more homeless young people connected to services. Called the Doorway Project, the effort looks to make services accessible for homeless young people who for whatever reason aren’t connected to shelter, food, medical care and case management. The idea is to create pop-up events over the course of this academic year, learn what works and possibly launch a homeless services navigation center in the U District grounded in lessons from the Doorway Project.

The first pop-up event this past Sunday attracted dozens of homeless young people for food, free winter clothing and mapping of the U District from their eyes. In this context, mapping means identifying where they see help and where they see threats. Over the course of four hours, 67 vouchers for free food were used. You can read more about the project .