Downtown Emergency Service Center

black and white photos by David Entrikin

DESC opened its doors in 1979 as an emergency shelter, a place for vulnerable adults living with behavioral health disorders and chronic homelessness to come in out of the cold for the night.

Today our mission is not merely to offer shelter, but to end the homelessness of our community's most vulnerable people, through an integrated array of clinical services and supportive housing that allows men and women to reclaim their lives and reach their highest potential. more

IMAGINE: A world without homelessness DESC's 2014 documentary

On June 30, 2016, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signed Resolution 31679 re-naming a portion of 1811 Eastlake Avenue between Denny Way and Court Place in honor of Bill Hobson, former Executive Director of DESC who passed away on March 4, 2016. Bill was the driving force behind DESC’s 1811 Eastlake building, an innovative and initially highly controversial housing project that is home to 75 men and women with chronic alcohol addiction. The program has become a national model for serving this population and has won multiple awards for its effectiveness.

Starting June 2016, DESC will no longer be accepting referrals for Vulnerability Assessment interviews. All housing referrals to DESC will be centralized through King County's Coordinated Entry system as part of King County's implementation of Coordinated Entry for All (CEA). more

The nationwide opiate overdose crisis affects our clients at DESC. We are very pleased that our state legislature sought to address the crisis by making naloxone more widely available in Washington State. DESC developed the "Opiate Overdose Response and Naloxone Administration" procedure in June 2015, with the invaluable assistance of the Center for Opioid Safety Education, a project of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute at the University of Washington.

According to a new evaluation by the Canadian Housing First Assessment Taskforce, DESC’s Vulnerability Assessment Tool determined to be the best brief screening tool available to facilitate the screening and prioritization of homeless individuals into Housing First services. more

Estelle Supportive Housing DESC intends to develop a future affordable housing in Southeast Seattle, located at 3501-3507 Rainier Avenue South. An informational forum about this new housing development was held on August 5, 2015 at DESC Rainier House. more

North 96th Street DESC recently started working on another new affordable housing development in the North Aurora Avenue neighborhood, located at 937 N 96th Street. An informational forum about this new housing development will be held on August 30, 2016. more

Primary and behavioral healthcare collaboration between DESC and Harborview Medical Center shows the high level of unmet healthcare needs of homeless people with serious mental illness. It also shows the willingness of people to participate in care when it is made available beyond conventional medical clinic settings. more

Housing First for people with serious psychiatric problems eliminates homelessness and significantly reduces psychiatric hospitalizations. more

Chronic homelessness is a serious public health issue that places a strain on health-care and criminal justice systems. Typical housing models place requirements on chronically homeless individuals that are often experienced as insurmountable barriers to housing. This article describes the key features and evidence base of the "single-site" Housing First model in use at DESC, using our 1811 Eastlake program as a case study. more

While DESC's priority is to provide services for vulnerable people in our community, we also make ourselves available for consultation to share our accumulated wisdom and strategies to address the most difficult to serve chronically homeless populations. more

October 6, 2016, 7:30AM - 9:00AM The Arctic Club Seattle For more information, contact [email protected]

THANK YOU! We we able to raise over $144,000 at the Dreaming of Home Gala on May 19th.

Special Thanks to Keynote Speaker Maia Szalavitz and our gala host Deborah Horne of KIRO 7.

For more about this year's results, visit our events page here.

Interested in sponsoring DESC events? Contact us at [email protected]

Primary Focus of the Provider

• Mix of Mental Health and Substance Abuse

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Type of Care

• Substance abuse treatment
• Buprenorphine used in treatment
• Accepts clients on opioid medication

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Facility Type

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Treatment Approaches

• Substance abuse counseling approach
• Trauma-related counseling

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Facility Smoking Policy

• Smoking permitted without restriction

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Service Setting (e.g., Outpatient, Residential, etc.)

• Outpatient
• Intensive outpatient treatment
• Regular outpatient treatment

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Facility Operation (e.g. Private, Public)

• Private organization
• State substance abuse agency
• State mental health department

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Payment/Insurance Accepted

• Cash or self-payment
• Medicaid
• Access to recovery (ATR) voucher
• Federal, or any government funding for substance abuse programs

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Emergency Mental Health Services

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Payment Assistance Available

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Language Services

• Services for the deaf and hard of hearing

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Special Programs/Groups Offered

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Ancillary Services

• Non-nicotine smoking/tobacco cessation medications
• Individual counseling offered
• Group counseling offered
• Family counseling offered
• 12-step faciltitation approach
• Brief intervention approach
• Motivational interviewing
• Anger management
• Relapse prevention

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Age Groups Accepted

• Young adults
• Adults

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Gender Accepted

• Female
• Male

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Exclusive Services

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