The Women's Housing, Equality and Enhancement League (WHEEL)

The Women’s Housing, Equality and Enhancement League (WHEEL) is a non-profit and non-hierarchical group of homeless and formerly homeless women working on ending homelessness for women.  WHEEL is all about empowerment and action.

<img src="http://www.sharewheel.org/_/rsrc/1472849791391/Home/wheel/WHEELicon-2.jpg?height=170&width=200" height="170" width="200">

WHEEL is the women-only, women-concerned sister organization to SHARE (Seattle Housing and Resource Effort).  Both WHEEL and SHARE provide self-managed shelters—including Tent Cities.

WHEEL works to get women out of the places where they have been hiding, recognize each woman as an individual and involve women in the process of improving programs and creating new programs for their own needs.

WHEEL’s goals are to give voice and leadership to homeless women, to organize campaigns around increased services and safety for women, and to develop and support self-managed shelters.

Since 1993, WHEEL has initiated many campaigns that have improved the lives of all women.  Our efforts have included:

• Pushing for longer hours at shelters and drop-in centers
• Moving the entrance DESC from “Crack Alley” to Third Avenue
• Holding yearly Homeless Women’s Forums, community gatherings.
• Establishing new shelters, day programs, meal projects and housing for women…including the County Winter Women's Shelter, Meal of Fortune, and Dorothy Day House

Current Project :

Since 2003, the Homeless Remembrance Project – a collaborative effort of homeless women, faith community leaders, designers, artists, social service providers and other friends – has worked to create places of hope, heading, and beauty to honor and remember homeless people who’ve died in King County. Our committee designed, developed and now maintains the only permanent public memorial for homeless people anywhere in the world. http://homelessremembrance.org/.

Our concept is twofold:

• The Tree of Life sculpture and community gathering place, in Victor Steinbrueck Park (north of Pike Place Market)
• Leaves of Remembrance on Seattle sidewalks bear the names of those who have died, and at the site: www.fallenleaves.org we share their stories. We currently have 14 leaf host sites and 257 leaves all over the City.