RUN YOUTH HOMELESSNESS OFF THE STREETS

Dear Friends,

The streets of Los Angeles were meant to be walked, driven and enjoyed but unfortunately they have become home to over 66,000 people across our city. Of those,  4,775 are youth (according to a Jan.2020 count), a 19% increase over the previous year.  LA County’s youth homeless population has unique needs and characteristics when compared to the overall homeless population. They are more likely to be female, Black, or Latinx. They are more likely to report being LGBT and less likely to have a substance abuse issue or mental illness. Youth also suffer from not having a job or housing history, a support system, or positive adult relationships. There is also a high intersection between child welfare, youth criminal justice and homelessness.

• In California, the term “homeless youth” generally refers to unaccompanied minors ages 12 through 17 who are living apart from their parents or legal guardians – and young adults ages 18 through 24 who are economically and/or emotionally detached from their families – and are experiencing homelessness or living in unstable or inadequate living situations.

Among LA County’s K-12 students, the LA County Office of Education reported roughly 57,700 homeless students for the 2018-2019 year during the point-in-time count. But at the end of the school year, the cumulative data showed the figure to be closer to around 68,000, according to the office’s homeless education coordinator Jennifer Kottke. Children experiencing homeless during school age are at higher risk of becoming homeless as youth and young adults. In the last year, 1/5 community college students, 1/10 Cal State University students and 1/20 University of California student were homeless at some point.

I am hoping that reading these numbers makes you as angry as I am about systems that have failed the youth of our city. I also want you to know that there are organizations with volunteers on the ground 365 days a year trying to make a difference in the lives of these youth. One of these amazing organizations is My Friends' Place...

The mission of My Friend's Place is to assist and inspire homeless youth to build self-sufficient lives. From our early beginnings as a volunteer-based group serving meals from the trunks of cars to the dynamic resource center in operation today, My Friend’s Place offers comprehensive services to nearly 1,400 youth experiencing homelessness between the ages of 12 and 25, and their children, each year, helping our homeless young people move toward wellness, stability and self-sufficiency.

They do this by offering 4 core programs: Safe Haven, Intake & Crisis Care, Transformative Education and Health & Well-Being.

My Friend’s Place seeks to address the consequences of systemic oppression, including mental and behavioral health, histories of juvenile and adult incarceration, as well as foster care involvement, and understands that these additional intersectional points of power and oppression shape how young people show up and experience the world. My Friend's Place is devoted to consistently reformulating and adjusting their program to ensure youths’ fullness of identities and experiences are met with dignity, compassion and care. My Friend's Place creates opportunities for every young person to feel safe, reimagine, envision and self-define a path of empowerment.

I first started doing homeless outreach for Mothers and youth when I was in college, that was a LONG TIME AGO and I am tired of seeing this crisis escalate, these populations become invisible and these lives disposable. I want to make a difference and I know you do to! On November 7th I want to run 26.2 miles of streets in our city to recognize our homeless youth population, celebrate their worth and the value they have. I want to help My Friend's Place continue doing the critical work they do for this community, they can't do it without our help. 

I invite you along and ask that you support our youth by sponsoring me and them for every mile of this run.

Together, we can run youth homelessness off these streets!!!

xxx- Azadeh Shladovsky