SOME -- So Others Might Eat

SOME restores hope and dignity to the homeless through comprehensive services, including meals (1,000 served daily), medical care, addiction treatment, job training and 600 units of permanent affordable housing. 202-797-8806.

Why do we exist?

SOME exists to help the poor and homeless in Washington, DC.  SOME began as a small soup kitchen in 1970 serving meals to a handful of those most in need.  Today, we feed 1,000 hungry children, women and men each day and have grown into a comprehensive care agency. 

We are unique in that we both meet people’s immediate needs and provide services that help them to break the cycle of poverty and homelessness.  In addition to serving two hot meals to hungry and homeless men, women, and children each day, SOME also offers affordable housing for families and single adults, job training, addiction treatment, mental health services, counseling, and programs for the elderly.  Our comprehensive care helps individuals to live increasingly productive and independent lives. 

We provide all of these services in a respectful, caring manner that helps to restore hope and dignity to the people whom we serve.

What have you accomplished?

In 2011, with the help of caring donors and volunteers, SOME provided:

• 248,205 hot nutritious meals for hungry children, women, and men in our Dining Rooms

• 141,215 meals served to men and women across our rehabilitative programs

• 22,306 showers and sets of free clothing for homeless men and women

• 29 abused and neglected elderly with safe housing, meals and social services

• 2,051 homeless and low income individuals with medical and dental services in our clinics

• 1,550 adults with individual and group counseling, case management and continuing care

• 84 formerly homeless families, including 196 children with safe, service enriched, affordable housing. Ninety-six percent of the families maintained their health, housing and income throughout 2011

• 406 formerly homeless and extremely low-income single adults, in permanent affordable housing with supportive services

• 610 homeless men and women in transitional housing with rehabilitative programs designed to help participants maintain sobriety, stabilize mental health and find employment

• 101 homeless and extremely low-income women and men with job training at our six month job training program. Seventy percent of graduates are employed and earning an average wage of $11.45/hour

Your support helps makes an enormous difference.  Seventy percent of graduates from the SOME Center for Employment Training secured jobs during a time when unemployment skyrocketed, and an average of 88% of addiction treatment program participants successfully completed the program; the national average is 45%.

It is the transformation that those who seek our help undergo that is so meaningful to them, and to each and every one of us who work, contribute, and volunteer at SOME.  From the day that they arrive at SOME they begin their move towards independent living; they re-enter the workforce, reunite with their families, and move into their own apartment.  People who were ill, isolated, and in pain become hopeful, increasingly confident, contributing members of society.

Thomas, a graduate of SOME’s 90-day addiction treatment program writes, “Dear SOME, Tears well up in my eyes for myself, and those like me who have been brought back from the brink of desolation.  This great organization has been a ‘light unto my path.’  I desperately wanted a way out of the darkness of addiction and depression and SOME’s Exodus House program was my way out.  I’m living in Shalom house now and going to your job training program.  I’m due to graduate in two months. I will thank you and show my gratitude by staying drug- and alcohol-free and by helping as many people as I possibly can for the rest of this wonderful life you’ve given back to me”.  Signed, “A grateful soul.”

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