Organization working to house asylum seekers and refugees is looking to call Tacoma home
After giving shelter to nearly 200 asylum seekers left unhoused in King County, a local organization working to support immigrant families is calling Tacoma home.
The Quality Inn on Tacoma’s South Hosmer Street has become a temporary home for dozens of families, many of whom escaped political unrest, economic instability and violence in their countries of origin.
In September 2024, an organization called Thrive International helped bring roughly 200 asylum seekers and refugees to the Tacoma hotel after they’d lived unhoused in a large encampment in Kent. Many of the families, originating from countries including Venezuela and Angola, had been staying at the encampment for months.
The director of the facility, Anna Bondarenko, told The News Tribune that Thrive International’s goal is to provide housing and wrap-around services to help these families become self-sufficient.
Thrive International has helped assist the families through the process of becoming eligible for employment — which often requires a 150-day waiting period. Many have already gotten jobs, purchased their own vehicles, and a few have found their own housing.
Mark Finney, Thrive International’s executive director, said the organization ran a similar model at a hotel in Spokane. He said it usually takes a few months before families start to gain momentum — at a certain point they begin to move out of the hotel and into their own housing in large numbers as they gain confidence.
In Spokane, Finney said, families usually stayed at the hotel for about six months on average.
Before Thrive International moved the asylum-seeking families from Kent to Tacoma, it signed a lease for the Quality Inn that will last three years.
After three years, Thrive will have the option to buy the hotel and work there permanently to assist refugees and asylum seekers. Finney said the organization is looking for funding partners to help them purchase the hotel.
Ultimately, Finney said, his organization wants to establish a “pipeline” for those fleeing their countries for a better life here. He said the current immigration system does not make that easy.
He said policies like the 150-day waiting period for work eligibility were intended to be a deterrent to those thinking of coming to the country.
“Migration was different when they made the system in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s,” Finney told The News Tribune. “It is an old system that does not serve the modern conditions. It wasn’t designed for that.”
Bondarenko said many of the families at the old Quality Inn reported themselves to the federal government and are going through a legal process that could mean deportation.
Finney said they are unsure what policies the next presidential administration could enact in the coming months, and the rhetoric of “mass deportations” has stirred anxiety.
“It is a very scary thing for people who have made huge sacrifices to be here,” Finney said. “In many cases, loved ones have died.”
Thrive International is doing what it can to support the families and build partnerships in the community.
It hosts clinics with lawyers to advise families through the immigration process. Local hospitals provide vaccination clinics. It helps parents build resumes and apply for jobs. Local school districts like Clover Park and Franklin Pierce send buses to transport children staying at the hotel to school.
Finney said the organization has been supported by grant funding from the Washington State Department of Commerce to assist during the refugee crisis, and the families staying at the hotel also chip in whatever income they have to stay there, which allows them to build rental history through the organization’s reference.
“We are curious what the community support will look like after the emergency phase is over,” Finney told The News Tribune.
Connie Stark is currently working for Thrive International to build local partnerships with foundations and corporate donors to build long-term support.
That day in September was a tumultuous one for the families who were unsure about what life would be like there and what their future in the U.S. would look like. Now, after several months, the hotel seems to be a place of comfort for the families that find refuge there.
Since the families arrived, there have been more than a dozen weddings at the hotel, several babies have been born, and a sense of community has developed with regular gatherings and events.
During a tour of the building, Bondarenko held a young child in her arms. She spoke of the children who regularly played soccer in the parking lot of the hotel, and how it brought her comfort that they could play and do the things that children should be able to do, in spite of the hardships they have faced.
“We are committed to the mission,” she said.
This story was originally published January 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
