SOME, Inc. (So Others Might Eat)
Restoring Hope and Dignity One Person at a Time
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Emergency Services
SOME was founded in 1970 with a small act of kindness—providing sandwiches to our hungry neighbors. Ensuring that those experiencing homelessness and poverty can meet their daily needs remains a core service at SOME. Whether the need is a hot meal or shower, a solid pair of shoes or non-perishable items to help feed a family, SOME is here to help.
SOME’s basic needs services are open to all, no questions asked, no judgment given. Services include:
Dining Room: SOME’s Dining Room provides two hot, nutritious meals every day of the year to anyone who needs it—no questions asked. Our staff strives to provide quality service in an environment that is clean, safe, and respectful to all. SOME’s Dining Room has space to accommodate women and families who may not want to sit in the main dining room. We also host a number of special events throughout the year, such as Professional Day and SOMEfest. Sandwiches and fruit are available for guests to take with them after meals and guests who miss breakfast or lunch can visit the front desk at 71 O Street to see if there are bagged lunches available.
Showers: SOME’s shower facilities are available for use every day of the year. Toiletries and towels will be provided. We offer standard morning blocks for men and women. Transgender persons, those with medical referrals, people with disabilities, and other authorized emergencies can shower by appointment in the afternoons.
Clothing: SOME’s clothing room offers clothing, shoes, accessories, and small home goods to those in need. Items are seasonally appropriate and provided free of charge. We also have a special room for children’s clothing and associated items. Hygiene kits are also available.
Food Pantry: SOME’s food pantry offers non-perishable food items and fresh produce (when available) to those who need extra help to ensure that they and their families have enough to eat. At SOME’s food pantry, we do our best to provide items that support healthy eating—whole grains, low-sodium and low-sugar products, and healthy snacks.
Additional Services: Include mail distribution and phone charging.
SOME's Clinical Services
SOME offers a full range of high-quality health services to adults experiencing homelessness or poverty. SOME’s healthcare providers understand the unique health challenges facing those living in poverty or without a stable home and work with patients towards the best possible health outcomes.
SOME offers walk-in hours every weekday and accepts patients regardless of their ability to pay.
Our Healthcare Services include:
Medical Clinic: At SOME’s Medical Clinic, patients are connected to knowledgeable and compassionate primary care providers. We offer special services to help patients overcome the unique health problems that come with living in poverty or without a stable home, including medication management, support in obtaining insurance, and having medical specialists in diabetes management, eye care, and podiatry on staff. SOME’s Eye Clinic is one of the only free eye clinics in the city.
Dental Clinic: SOME’s Dental Clinic provides emergency and preventative care to patients, working to achieve healthy and confident smiles, relieve pain, and improve quality of life.
Mental Health Services: SOME supports women and men experiencing homelessness and/or poverty in stabilizing and maintaining their mental health through several programs. We provide walk-in counseling and psychiatric services to individuals at our Health Services Clinic; Isaiah House, a therapeutic day program that provides a supportive environment for men and women who have been impacted by both homelessness and severe and persistent mental illness; and Jordan and Mary Claire Houses, a community alternative to psychiatric hospitalization.
SOME's Senior Services
SOME Senior Services offers programs that maintain the health and wellbeing of vulnerable seniors in the District, helping them to remain independent in their homes and communities as long as possible, safely and with dignity.
SOME’s Senior Center, located in Ward 8, offers exciting health, wellness, and recreational activities and links participants to supportive services. Activities include, but are not limited to, fitness classes, health and wellness seminars, senior advocacy workgroups, and community trips (museums, shopping, etc.). Lunch is provided daily. Transportation is provided for residents of Wards 6, 7, and 8.
The Homebound Program offers long-term, intensive case management to seniors in their home. Case management support services include regular needs assessments, weekly calls, links to community resources, accompaniment to doctor appointments, and other practical assistance to support senior residents living in Wards 5, 6, 7, and 8 successfully age-in-place.
SOME offers an annual Senior Summer Camp for senior citizens in need of rest and relaxation but are unable to afford a vacation. This week-long retreat is offered twice each summer and located at a beautiful country house in West Virginia.
SOME offers permanent, affordable housing for seniors at Kuehner House. Kuehner House offers 15 efficiency apartments and 27 single room occupancy units. Residents share a bathroom, kitchen, and laundry facilities with two to three other residents. Kuehner House residents have access to all of SOME’s supportive services.
SOME provides emergency housing for seniors who have been abused, neglected, financially exploited, or displaced at Kuehner Place. Kuehner House is a temporary (90 day) housing program.
SOME's Center for Employment Training
The SOME Center for Employment Training (SOME CET) is a tuition-free adult workforce training program that prepares adult learners for national, industry-recognized certifications for careers in Healthcare and the Building Trades.
SOME CET specializes in providing a holistic approach that starts with open entry and exit. We do not have sessions or semesters, which allows new students to start each week. The program is self-paced with the average student completing the program within 24 weeks (six months).
For each program, trainees learn industry-specific content and skills, are assigned to an externship site for hands-on work experience, and given the opportunity to take the industry certification exam free of charge.
The SOME CET workforce training model includes four developmental segments:
Basic Education: Students are evaluated academically via the CASAS test to determine where they stand in mathematics and reading throughout their time in the program to track progress. SOME CET recognizes that basic skills like math, reading, and grammar are critical to career development. We follow an integrated, contextualized model where students learn basic skills in their industry context and all basic skills instruction is co-taught both industry and adult basic education instructors and integrated into the industry curriculum.
Human Development: This segment addresses the barriers that have prevented the students from success in the past. Students receive employment preparation, such as case management and workshops in money management. Life skills are strengthened through one-on-one counseling and psycho-educational groups. This segment also includes a retention aspect where students are contacted once a month for 12 months after graduation to check on employment status and offers incentives for maintaining full-time employment.
Skills Development: Trainees increase their vocational training by utilizing work place tools, attending industry presentations and field trips, and much more. Additionally, competency tests are used to assure that trainees thoroughly understand each content area.
Career Development: Our Talent Development Department provides students, graduates, and their employers with a life-long network of support. After graduation, ongoing follow-up services are provided, including job coaching, monthly check-ins, and support services, to ensure that graduates meet and exceed employers’ expectations. SOME CET also supports graduates with on-going career development planning, mentoring, an alumni network, and after-work seminars.
SOME's Affordable Housing
Washington, DC faces a staggering shortage of decent, affordable housing. To help address this need, SOME offers safe and dignified affordable apartments for individuals and families experiencing homelessness and/or poverty in the District. SOME’s housing programs combine safe, affordable, long-term housing with supportive services that help adults and children reach their full potential and empower them to lead increasingly independent lives.
In 2005, SOME set a goal of building 1,000 units of affordable housing in the District. As of 2020, we were 80% of the way to that goal.
SOME's Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program
SOME offers comprehensive treatment options that empower men and women to break the bonds of addiction, reunite with their families, and rejoin their communities. Services are person-centered: each person will be evaluated during their initial appointment, or intake, to determine the most effective treatment plan.
SOME offers addictions treatment in individual and group settings.
Services:
Residential Treatment: Treatment plans may incorporate residential treatment, offered at SOME’s facility in West Virginia. We also offer a safe house for clients prior to going to residential treatment and transitional housing for clients returning from that facility.
Outpatient Treatment: Intensive outpatient services include three treatment groups a day, as well as individual study time, 12 step groups, and peer groups. Clients may meet one-on-one with a counselor. Our outpatient program includes one to two groups a week specifically focused on maintaining and working on recovery following residential treatment.
SOME also offers alumni programs to our clients following their graduation. These services including monthly meetings, access to individual counseling, and peer support services as needed.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of meals served or provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Age groups, Ethnic and racial groups
Related Program
Emergency Services
Type of Metric
Other - describing something else
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
SOME intends continually to foster an environment of transformational change for individuals
and families experiencing poverty and homelessness in our Nation's capital, allowing them to
achieve long-term stability and success.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To make this happen we will implement an enhanced, fully integrated, and highly collaborative Whole Person care
model. SOME’s integrated, whole person, approach to caring for individuals and families
will focus on, (i) an integrated, individualized model of care, (ii) facilitating seamless
access to, and fluid movement within, our suite of programs and services, and (iii)
identifying the services that best help each person improve and thrive.
• Focus on impact. We will continuously evaluate our work in order to assess the impact
of our programs and services on our clients, their communities, and the structures and
systems that affect their lives on a daily basis.
• Pursue growth, doing more and doing it better. SOME is committed to purposeful
growth in our, (i) affordable housing portfolio, increasing the portfolio to 2,000 units by
2026, targeting especially, as we have historically, residents making 0% to 30% of Area
Median Income (“AMI”), (ii) supportive services, correlative to the increase in numbers
of residents in SOME housing, and (iii) social, clinical, and resident services with
seamless integration and collaboration being the touchstones of our care delivery
model.
• Increase our financial strength and sustainability. We seek to expand and fund our
ambitious strategic goals by, (i) growing SOME’s operating income from its earned
revenue channels by 7% to 12% annually, (ii) achieving 10% annual growth in
fundraising, (iii) successfully completing a robust 3-year Capital Campaign, and (iv)
creating an acquisition fund for housing development, recruiting seed capital from key
donors and institutional investors, including banks, businesses, foundations, and quasigovernmental
community investment organizations.
• Overtly sharpen our focus on culture, talent, leadership, and governance. With clear
intent and purpose, we will, (i) promote a culture of constructive dialog, emphasizing
our collective responsibility for facilitating and achieving SOME’s mission, (ii) invest in
talent development, intentionally promoting professional acumen and personal
integrity, while making an abiding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as part
of SOME’s ethos, strategies, and tactics, and (iii) strengthen and support SOME’s
leadership and governance infrastructure.
• Honor and uplift our volunteers, optimizing their impact and the quality of their
experiences. We will organize, purposefully train, further build-out and support our
volunteer corps so that their interests, skills, and expertise are appropriately leveraged
to optimize the impact they have on the people we serve and the quality of their
volunteer experiences.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
SOME’s current financial position is strong, with net assets of more than $120m, and an
investment fund approaching $32m in value, $14m of which is unrestricted. Although not as
liquid, SOME also has other assets, including reserves and unencumbered real estate that add
to our organization’s solid financial foundation and agility. Beneficially, SOME’s unrestricted net
assets, along with our liquidity, positions us comfortably above the net asset and liquidity
thresholds recommended for healthy nonprofits. In addition, the mix of SOME’s diverse,
recurring revenue sources – both through fundraising and earned income from operations --
also adds to our financial stability, stability that exists in a context where SOME historically has
committed more than 90 cents of every dollar it receives directly to client and program
services. This, along with the fact that we achieved our best ever programmatic and financial
results during a pandemic year supports our belief that we can do more. In fact, its challenges
us to do more and better in the years to come.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
SOME, Inc. (So Others Might Eat)
Board of directorsas of 05/08/2023
Mr. Jason Geno
Founder and Managing Principal of Human Capital Initiatives, LLC (HCi)
Term: 2021 -
Mary Catherine Guiler
Substitute Teacher
Jason Geno
Founder/President, Human Capital Initiatives
John Adams
SOME President Emeritus
George McFarland
McFarland and Associates
Sr. Mary Bader, DC
St. Ann’s Center for Children, Youth and Families
Stefanie Gerard Cohn
Raffa PC
Mary Miller
EEI (Retired)
Ralph Boyd
President, SOME
Linda Jo Smith
PEPCO (Retired)
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? No -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? No -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? No -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? No -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data