Bayside Housing & Services

Bayside Housing & Services (BHS) offers transitional and permanent housing with trauma-informed case management services to improve the economic and social independence of individuals and families experiencing homelessness and poverty in rural Jefferson County.

Families living unhoused in rural areas such as Jefferson County face reduced options for affordable housing, limited opportunities to achieve economic equity, and logistical complications as they seek assistance from social service agencies. BHS exists to meet this need. The people served by BHS are suffering from homelessness or are unstably housed. They endure unaddressed and overlooked problems, lack sufficient social support, and as their hopes steadily diminish, they experience increasing trauma exacerbated by homelessness. It infiltrates their lives, building to a seemingly inescapable extreme. There are many routes to homelessness but few paths leading out of it. BHS does its best to identify those paths, offering safety, support and guidance to rebuild lives, one by one.

BHS serves people who are currently without shelter or unstably housed by first housing them and then, guiding program participants--seniors, veterans, families with children, people experiencing domestic violence, those with major physical or mental health challenges and disabilities--toward the attainment of secure permanent housing and the skills needed to remain housed. Among their most pressing needs are safe and sustainable housing, food security, the opportunity to recover from trauma and the co-occurring crises that accompany homelessness, treatment for behavioral and physical health issues, substance use disorder treatment, and financial empowerment through education and employment.

One of our goals is to help people move into and through our program, to ultimately find permanent housing and re-engage in community as they heal. Since Bayside began operations in 2016, we have: 

• provided over 90,186 nights in a safe bed
• housed 304 individuals
• served over 36,300 meals
• moved over 60% of our program participants into long-term housing
• Bayside continues to build and grow a trauma-informed model of care, which is a non-judgmental method for aiding people experiencing trauma. Embracing these evidence-based practices is central for housing and other service providers, as the homeless condition – a traumatic condition in itself – is also linked to experiences like childhood abuse and neglect, intimate partner and other domestic violence, traumatic brain injury, substance use disorder, mental illness, and trauma related to military service - among other circumstances.

Currently, Bayside can offer 53 units of housing and provides case management services to 60 people. Of these, 17.6% are children 18 and under and 23.5% are seniors 65+. Of the 121 people on the waiting list for housing, 45 represent families of 2-7 people. As the Jefferson County rental vacancy rate hovers between 0 and 1%, BHS is creating more units of housing and adding more case managers to its team.

Here in Jefferson County, 63.7% of single mother families live in poverty (the highest rate of any of the state's counties). Bayside's approach has resulted in demonstrable benefit to this group, as a young woman named Amanda can attest: "When my daughter was born I knew I couldn't go back into that situation of unstable housing. I didn't want her to be exposed to the abuse that I experienced. When she was born that was all I thought about--what is life going to look like in three years, five years? What do I have to do to make what I want becomes a reality? When I came here to Bayside, I instantly felt like I had our own private place, a place to make sure that you're ready for the day to accomplish those goals. I remember looking out the windows every morning and thinking this is an amazing pace for us to be able to start this journey of my baby's life. Not having to think about where we were going to live definitely paved the way for me to start thinking about the bigger picture. While I was at Bayside, I took the entrance exam to get into college. I graduated with honors from Peninsula College, and I am pursuing a Bachelor Science, perhaps a Master's. You have to put in the work, to make all the puzzle pieces fit together, but Bayside definitely worked for me." 

Every dollar you give to Bayside Housing & Services shortens someone's wait for safe and stable housing and lights their path to getting the assistance they need to secure permanent housing.