Three staff members of B&R, Phil Owen, Meta Hogan, and Selena Kilmoyer are moving onto new paths in their lives. Selena will be working at Partneres In Prevention Education as well as on other community projects. Phil is looking to find work in a similar field and to support Meta in her run for mayor of Olympia

The Olympian published an article on the front page this morning that contained glaring factual errors. I'd like to clear a few of them up.

First, as Phil pointed out in the online comments, B&R staff do not "live for free", we recieve room and board and a $200/ month stipend (not $600/month as Diane Huber wrote in the Olympian) for pretty much being on call 24/7 and sometimes putting in 60 or more hours of "work" in a week. We certainly don't do this for the money.

Second, the Bread and Roses Advocacy Center is located at 1009 E 4th Avenue, it hasn't been at 121 State Ave. for a year now.

Third, and most important, the women at the guesthouse are not "losing their housing", the alarmism of this article is way off base. It was made clear to Diane Huber that the Guesthouse will not be shutting down until all of the women have places to go that are safe. The Guesthouse is a transitional housing situation, not a permanent housing situation, this means that the women there were working on moving out already. While these recent developments might speed the transitional process a bit, it's not a surprise to the women that they are expected to move on.

Bread and Roses is a grassroots community based organization that operates on a budget of just a bit over $200.000/year. When changes like this take place, we sometimes are forced to contract a bit. It is sad that it affects our friends on the streets, but in the long run it is better to, as in this case, close down the Guesthouse than to have the remaining staff try to juggle that with what they're already doing. Trying to that would most likely cause a lot of burnout and failure.

P>The future of Bread and Roses is somewhat undecided. We are considering housing families with children, not because the need is necesarily greater, but because it might be a bit more sustainable for a smaller staff. Whatever we decide to do, we are going to make sure that there are many opportunities for the greater community to be involved with the Bread and Roses community.

If anyone has questions or concerns about the future of B&R, please contact Rob Richards at 360.359.3293