Leonard DeClue, 47, and watches as his son Jeremiah, 9, plays a digital game on the couch in the family area at the Family anhd Adult Service Center in downtown Seattle. The homeless family of Leonard and At 8:20 each evening the family must board a city bus for a 40 minute ride to a church which provides them a place to sleep for the night. At 6:20 each morning the family is awakened and by 6:40 they are on a bus heading back to the FASC facility downtown. From there the older children depart on another one hour bus ride to school while their parents deal with the small children and the sometimes daunting bureaucracy faced by the homeless.
At the surplus former Federal Office Building/Immigration and Naturalization building in Seattle's International District, a homeless man prepares his bed for the nighht. SHARE/WHEEL, a cooperative of homeless people runs this and 12 other shelters and is the city's largest provider of emergency housing for Seattle's estimated 8,000+ homeless people. This shelter attracts two to three dozen homeless per night. The facility which was used as a jail for illegal aliens, is spartan but affords a dry and safe environment. Volunteers from among the group manage the facility and provide security.
