Congregations for the Homeless (CFH) operates a winter men’s shelter in Bellevue as an emergency overnight shelter providing men with a hot meal and a safe place to sleep. Their staff also connects these men to vital resources, helping them toward security, stability, and independence.
Due to the lack of fire safety infrastructure at their current facility at Lincoln Center in Bellevue, the shelter is required to shut down each year from May through October. However, this is changing due to the leadership of CFH’s Executive Director, David Bowling, and former Bellevue Councilmember, Kevin Wallace, who has helped raise the necessary donations and funds to renovate the space to current fire code and allow the facility to operate 365 days a year and serve 100 men.
Our past work with Kevin Wallace afforded us an invitation to join the project and oversee the installation of the water service to the building and the additions of the fire safety equipment and sprinklers to the shelter spaces. Additionally, we relocated and infilled several doorways, and repainted several exterior walls.
CFH was founded in 1993 as an agency of the Eastside Interfaith Social Concerns Council to provide a warm, safe, and hospitable place for up to 30 single men to sleep and be nourished. In the subsequent years, CFH has grown to support 100 men with overnight shelter at local congregations and from November through April at their main location. CFH is planning to build a permanent shelter in the Eastlake neighborhood of Bellevue in the near future.
More information about Congregations For The Homeless can be found on their website at www.cfhomeless.org