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from Seattle Times

Is TrumprCOs vision for homelessness going to reach everyone in Seattle?
Jan. 18, 2026 at 6:00 am Updated Jan. 18, 2026 at 6:00 am

Tina Telles poses for a photo inside of her permanent supportive housing
unit at Morrison Hotel on Dec. 15 in Seattle. (Nick Wagner / The Seattle Times, 2025)
Tina TellesrCO permanent supportive housing top-floor unit at Morrison
Hotel offers a view of Elliott Bay on Dec. 15 in Seattle. (Nick Wagner
/ The Seattle Times, 2025)
1 of 8 | Tina Telles poses for a photo inside of her permanent
supportive housing unit at Morrison Hotel on Dec. 15 in Seattle. (Nick
Wagner / The Seattle Times, 2025)

By Greg Kim
Seattle Times staff reporter

The Seattle TimesrCO Project Homeless is supported by Campion Foundation, Raikes Foundation and Seattle Foundation. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over Project Homeless content.
David McCallion spent his first few days at Bread of Life Mission
shelter in Pioneer Square sweating, unable to sleep, feeling like he was
going to die. The homeless shelter he entered in November of 2024 didnrCOt allow drug use and he was going through withdrawal symptoms after
quitting fentanyl.

Fast forward a year and he was clean. He had a full-time job and was
plotting a move into his own apartment.

And President Donald Trump is asking, why canrCOt all homeless people do that?

Two months ago, the federal government said it would cut funding for
Housing First, a model that provides permanent housing for homeless
people regardless of their sobriety and offers treatment and services
when people are ready to accept them. It is the model nearly all of
Seattle and King CountyrCOs publicly funded homelessness services are
built on.

Related SeattlerCOs homelessness response in peril as Trump aims at
rCyHousing FirstrCO
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Officials want to take that money and put it toward programs like the
one McCallion went through, which enforce sobriety and aim to graduate
people into self-sufficiency.

Tina Telles, sitting in the apartment of the Morrison Hotel, a permanent supportive housing building where sherCOs lived since 2021, says that
wonrCOt work.

rCLPeople will end up homeless again,rCY Telles said. rCLBecause most of the people that are homeless have serious problems and need serious help all
the time.rCY

Homelessness, its symptoms and solutions, looks different for each
person experiencing it.

For people like McCallion, a few months of life coaching, a supportive environment and mentors to hold them accountable is enough to turn their
lives around. But many people who live outside suffer from a combination
of physical conditions that limit their ability to work, mental
illnesses that require intensive care, and substance use disorders that wonrCOt disappear overnight.

McCallion and Telles are proof both models can work, but TrumprCOs move to replace one with the other may not have the intended outcome.

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Treatment first
In a historic, brick building in Pioneer Square, Bread of Life Mission
has opened its doors to homeless people as a Christian faith-based
shelter since the 1940s. Outside the front door, a neon sign reads rCLCome unto merCY above a picture of Jesus entering a door.

Bread of Life typifies the type of homelessness service the Trump administration wants to redirect federal funding toward. Unlike most
shelters and permanent supportive housing in Seattle, Bread of Life,
which is privately funded, requires residents to be sober and
breathalyzes them and tests their urine to enforce that rule.

To keep their bed, they are required to go through an 8-step program rCLundergirded by Discipleship and Christian community.rCY

McCallion said thatrCOs why Bread of Life allowed him to turn his life
around.

He grew up in an environment where he said selling and using drugs was
all he knew. And after one of his sons and his partner died, McCallion
became addicted to fentanyl and was living in a tent in Austin, Texas.

In 2023, he moved to Bremerton, where his mom and daughter were living
to get a fresh start and quit fentanyl cold turkey. For several days, he
said he was rCLliving in the bathroomrCY of his momrCOs home as he dealt with the vomiting and diarrhea that comes with fentanyl withdrawal. His
mother, unsure of how to help her son, called Bread of Life Mission.

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Once he got his bearings, he attended classes there seven hours a day
for the next three months. Each day began with a morning devotion,
followed by a regimen of anger management coaching, group therapy and
lessons on ways to cope with liferCOs challenges.

He said it was a place for him to find his morals and values and how to
live by them. He started waking up at 4 a.m. to help cook breakfast for
the shelter residents and found purpose in bringing joy to others.

rCLBefore I came in, like, everything I did was for myself. It was all
solely for the purpose of me,rCY McCallion said. rCLAnd as I progressed through the program, and I got closer to God, I started caring more
about the people around me and how I could help them.rCY

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McCallion eventually got a full-time job at the shelter as the cook, and
said he is planning to move into his own apartment soon and invite his 16-year-old daughter to join him.

rCLAnd thatrCOll be happiness for me. ThatrCOll be like heaven,rCY McCallion said.

McCallion supports TrumprCOs desire to redirect federal funding. He said
if people addicted to drugs arenrCOt forced to change through rules like
the sobriety requirement at Bread of Life, they wonrCOt.

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rCLIf you donrCOt got to do nothing to get housing, then theyrCOre always going to take that route,rCY McCallion said.

But while Bread of LiferCOs strict regimen worked for McCallion, about 30
of the 100 bunk beds in the shelter are empty. Bread of Life Mission CEO
Kim Cook said thatrCOs because the shelter hasnrCOt advertised open beds as
it looks to increase staffing.

But McCallion said he thinks itrCOs because the program requires people to
be sober and some staff agree.

rCLWerCOre not getting the fentanyl guys in here,rCY said Ryan Murk, a life coach at Bread of Life Mission.

While McCallion got off fentanyl on his own with over-the-counter
painkillers, many people canrCOt handle the severe withdrawal symptoms
without medication-assisted treatment, which reduces the bodyrCOs opioid cravings. And unlike many people living on the street or in a communal shelter, McCallion had a warm home and his own bathroom where he could
endure the worst of the symptoms.

And aside from addiction, McCallion had a healthy mind and body
otherwise, something many people who are homeless do not have.

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Housing First
A couple blocks away from Bread of Life Mission, Tina Telles starts
every day at the Morrison Hotel on Third Avenue taking her medication
for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia with help from staff who are
available 24 hours a day.

rCLThey help me every day. I canrCOt live without them,rCY Telles said.

When she was homeless seven years ago, the turbulence of shuffling among shelters, tents and food banks prevented her from taking her medicine
and caused her to become manic.

rCLThererCOs no routine when yourCOre homeless, you just are lucky to be alive,rCY Telles said.

She said she was thrust into homelessness after her mom, who she had
lived with for a decade, stole thousands of dollars of her disability
payments and sold the trailer she was living in. Telles decided to leave
the country and took a bus from California toward Canada but became disoriented and lost in Bellingham before ending up in Seattle.

She had undergone total hip replacement surgery a year prior and was in
a wheelchair, and her health quickly deteriorated living outside. She
said her teeth began falling out and she was in pain all the time.

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In 2019, staff at homelessness nonprofit Downtown Emergency Service
Center began working with Telles to get her an ID card, get her
re-enrolled in disability payments and start taking medication regularly
so she was stabilized enough to move into a room in the Morrison Hotel.

There, Telles has access to a primary care provider in addition to
in-home care multiple times a week to help her with dishes, laundry and cleaning.

rCLI was so relieved. It was GodrCOs paradise,rCY Telles said.

Built in 1908 and later converted into a permanent supportive housing
for formerly homeless people, the hotel operated by Downtown Emergency
Service Center was one of the birthplaces of the Housing First model and relies on federal homelessness dollars to help pay its staff.

Instead of a bunk bed to use temporarily until they leave a program like
at Bread of Life, residents at the Morrison are given their own room
because the expectation is that they will always need extra help and
wonrCOt ever make enough money to afford their own rent. To get a room
there, people must have been homeless for more than a year and have at
least one disability.

Daniel Malone, executive director of Downtown Emergency Service Center, supports rehabilitation-focused programs, but he said they donrCOt work
for people with severe mental illness, addiction and physical
disabilities. Bread of Life Mission lacks medical and behavioral health specialists on site to take care of people like Telles.

rCLSo it makes sense to me that scarce homelessness dollars would be
oriented toward people with the highest needs,rCY Malone said.

Nowadays, Telles looks forward to trips to museums and the library, and
spends much of her day distributing food to other people who are
homeless. She also has a part-time job as a cat sitter.

rCLItrCOs wonderful housing. I want to stay here for 20 years, until I die,rCY Telles said. rCLIrCOm so happy that IrCOm not homeless.rCY

Greg Kim: 206-464-2532 or grkim@seattletimes.com. Greg Kim is a reporter
for Climate Lab at The Seattle Times who writes about the intersection
of climate, energy and business. Previously, he worked on Project Homeless.
The Seattle Times closes comments on particularly sensitive stories. If
you would like to share your thoughts or experiences in relation to this story, please email the reporter or submit a letter to be considered for publication in our Opinion section. You can read more about our
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