The city of Spokane and Volunteers of America have received nearly a million dollars to fund services for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.
The money will help social service providers identify young people in public schools and behavioral health treatment programs who are experiencing homelessness, as well as to provide resources for housing.
The money came as part of state funding that was secured by the group A Way Home Washington, a public-private partnership.
Elysa Hovard is the project director with the Anchor Community Initiative, which has a goal of eliminating youth homelessness in four Washington communities, including Spokane, by the end of 2022.
“What it means is your system has the capacity to respond to all young people that need help. And so if you have 10 younger people coming into your system, your system has 10 beds for those young people, or more. And so then you’ve ended it. You can respond in real time and you won’t have those young people sitting on those waiting lists, getting victimized and different things that are happening on the streets,” Hovard said.
Bridget Cannon says some of the grant funding will help advocates determine a more accurate number of the youth who are homeless in the community, something that has been difficult to determine. Cannon is the director of youth services at Volunteers of America in Spokane.
She says, over the years, most of the money directed to organizations that work with people who are homeless has been focused on adults, rather than youth. She says that changed when the legislature created the Office of Homeless Youth four years ago.
She says the Anchor Community Initiative goal of zero youth homeless changes the strategy from a crises response to forward planning.
“If we reach that threshold, we stop that, and 50% of the homeless adults go away," Cannon said. "They won’t be there because they won’t be graduating from the youth system into the adult system. They’re going to be graduating from the youth system into independence."
Cannon says VOA serves about 1,000 people a year in Spokane through its Crosswalk shelter, transitional housing for young families, foster youth programs, and street outreach programs.
