Trina Reese

Residential Counselor @DESC (Downtown Emergency Service Center)

Seattle, WA, US

Residential Counselors manage basic day-to-day operations in DESC’s housing programs. Residential Counselors assist the men and women living in supportive housing projects with their daily needs, with special emphasis on challenges related to severe and persistent mental illness and substance use disorders.DESC works to end the homelessness of vulnerable people, particularly those living with serious mental illnesses, substance use disorders, and/or chronic health conditions. We choose to work with the most marginalized and most vulnerable people first, not the most cooperative.We believe in the capacity of people to change. Even when our clients display negative behavior or experience failure at meeting their own goals over and over, we do not give up on them. Our goal is to help clients achieve their highest potential for independence, self-determination, and personal responsibility possible. Even though we may issue consequences for a client’s negative behavior and their access to services may be heavily conditioned after a serious situation, we will always find a way to make sure a client maintains a connection to services at DESC.