A program for youth at risk of becoming homeless shows promise in catching those falling through the cracks. Its aim is to help them move from being at-risk to seeing a promise for the future.
Suzanna Adams is a soft-spoken 20-year-old whose measured words betray her past and frame her hope for the future.
Adams is a client of the Threshold Housing Society’s Safe Housing for Youth program for youth at risk. The program is funded in part by the Victoria Foundation.
The program, available for young adults between 18 and 22, provides safe housing and an intense life-skills program to ensure they become self-supporting and self-reliant members of the community. Once accepted in the program, youth are guaranteed a roof over their heads for up to two years.
Like many other youth in the program, she spent time on the streets, finding shelter where she could after she moved to British Columbia from Ontario three years ago.
“I was struggling and living on the street,” she said almost in a whisper, recalling a dark time in her young life. “But I knew I wanted to better my own life — but I couldn’t see how.”
She heard about Threshold, which provides transitional housing for youth at risk of homelessness, from people on the street, and that was the ray of hope she had been looking for.
“It absolutely changed my life,” she said, with a lot more enthusiasm in her voice. “It gave me a chance, a chance to transform my life.”
Her voice grew stronger, confident and more alive as she talked about the programs offered by Threshold, which include school completion, work training and life-skills training.
“They [the staff] have been supportive to help me get to my goals,” said Adams, who has just entered the Safe Housing for Youth program. “They have made me feel that I can take on the whole world now. Before this program, all I could look forward to was a minimum-wage job. Now I want to go to college and work in the field of solar and green energy.”
Success stories such as this are music to the ears of Mark Muldoon, executive director of the society, which started in 1990. But more needs to be done, he said.
“Youth housing is in crisis. As a group they make up the fastest-growing segment of the homeless in Canada,” he said. “The problem is that youth homelessness is a big part of the hidden homeless demographic, a group the average person isn’t aware of.”
In some population counts, homeless advocates estimate as many as 6,000 youth are homeless nightly in Canada.
The Threshold Housing Society initiated the Safe Housing for Youth program in 2012. It is designed for youth who need minimal supervision, have a plan to move into the future, but need safe, affordable and stable housing to realize their plans.
The program provides support and supervision. Support includes also bimonthly life-skills workshops, ready-to-rent training, and community resource access and education. It supplies the largest number of long-term transitional housing units for youth in the Capital Regional District.
> For more information, go to thresholdhousing.ca.
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