At Friendship Place, we believe there is a solution to homelessness – housing. That’s why we’ve made permanent supportive housing a cornerstone of our mission.

Over the years, we’ve built a number of successful partnerships with other nonprofits and public agencies that share our aim of ending homelessness by creating housing. Together with our partners – Anne Frank House, Inc., Church of the Annunciation, Community Housing Trust, the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, and the D.C. Department of Human Services – we are now providing safe, comfortable, dignified housing to 98 men and women who once lived on the streets of Washington.

With the ongoing case management that we offer, the residents of our housing programs can recover from the fear, loneliness and illness they experienced on the streets, and can reach their fullest potential for self-sufficiency and integration into the community. The case managers work with them to repair broken family relationships, get clean and sober, tend to medical and psychiatric issues, learn or re-learn basic life skills, put their finances in order, pursue educational opportunities, and find work or enter job training programs.

Our housing programs receive consistently high ratings from the public agencies that help fund them, as measured by the progress and well-being of the consumers. Several factors contribute to our success:

• Our low consumer-to-case manager ratio ― 13 to one.
• Our volunteer mentors, who offer friendship and support to our housed consumers on a one-to-one basis.
• Access by our consumers to our clinic, which provides free medical and psychiatric care.
• Our monthly staff training program that keeps our staff up to date on best practices in homeless services.
• Our conscientious efforts to engage our consumers in activities that create a sense of community and empowerment ― our Consumer Council, our Speakers Bureau, recovery support groups, volunteer opportunities, participation in special events and representation on our board.

George Siletti spent decades wandering the country and eating out of dumpsters after a childhood of bouncing around foster homes. Our case managers helped him get the psychiatric and medical care that he needed and secured an apartment for him with our housing partner Anne Frank House. He continues to receive case management services from Friendship Place.

George enjoys giving back to Friendship Place by participating in our Speakers Bureau and serving as president of our Consumer Council.

“Friendship Place has given me a new start. I have a phone and am in the phonebook. I know it sounds silly, but having a phone and a mailbox makes me part of the community. I am no longer a homeless statistic; I am part of our community.”