For over 100 years, Wellspring Family Services has been proud to deliver mental health services throughout Greater Seattle as part of our mission to end family homelessness. Unfortunately, due to funding challenges, Wellspring has made the difficult decision to close the program effective March 31, 2022.

Wellspring Family Services will continue to promote employee stability and wellbeing through Wellspring Employee Assistance Program. Wellspring EAP has a network of over 35,000 mental health professionals and other service providers in its national network of partners. Wellspring’s new Employee Stability Program will build on Wellspring EAP by offering housing-stabilization services to employees enrolled in this unique benefit program.

Wellspring will also continue to deliver Housing and Early Learning services for families experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, homelessness. Wellspring Family Store, whose services have doubled in recent years, will continue to expand its support to families in need.

The Board of Directors made the difficult decision to close the Counseling program on February 13. They made this decision in order to preserve Wellspring’s other foundational programs that support families and employees facing or experiencing homelessness.

The closure is the result of decreased funding for mental health programs over time. Neither insurance reimbursements nor public funding programs such as Medicaid fully cover all costs of services, which makes it challenging for nonprofit organizations to operate sustainably.

According to Board Chair Stuart Williams, “It is with heavy hearts and great frustration that Wellspring joins the growing list of human service organizations impacted by this unsustainable funding model. As mission-driven, nonprofit organizations, we simply cannot operate sustainably with losses.

“Our staff and board leadership are profoundly grateful to our highly skilled and committed team of therapists who served Wellspring’s clients with compassion for many years.”

The loss of Wellspring’s Counseling Services program highlights the critical need for increased funding and support for mental health programs. With the current mental health crisis, nonprofit organizations must have sufficient resources to continue to provide critical services to those in need.