Tagged: homeless youth

The White House hosted the LGBT Conference on Housing and Homelessness today in Detroit. It explored various issues lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face when it comes to finding housing or dealing with homelessness. This was one of four such conferences the White House is hosting around the country.

One area of focus was how to help homeless LGBT kids.  Laura Hughes is the executive director of the Ruth Ellis Center. It’s a social service agency that helps LGBT homeless kids and it’s one of only a handful of its kind in the country.

A newspaper says there were more than 31,000 homeless students in Michigan schools last year, an increase of more than 300 percent since 2007. Experts tell the Detroit Free Press that the reason appears to be home foreclosures across the state. In the past, schools typically heard different reasons, such as fire or domestic abuse.

Kids with no permanent address are living with relatives or friends or at shelters and motels. Nicole Larabee and her 14-year-old son have bounced from house to house in Livonia, including one with fleas. She had a $12-an-hour job but quit in 2010 for another job that fell through.

Larabee and 14-year-old son Matt are living in a friend's basement. Matt says it's hard to relax "unless you have your own place."

The holidays often highlight family and special meals. But those can be delicate issues for some people, including homeless kids.  Pam Cornell-Allen is Associate Director of Ozone House, a non-profit that helps homeless youth in Washtenaw County. She says the holidays focus on a sense of family, and that can be a tender subject for homeless kids.

“Part of the reason they are homeless is because of a family conflict. Or home might not even be a safe place. So they may not be spending holiday time with their family, and as a result they can feel lonely and depressed.” 

Every week on What’s Working, we take a look at people and organizations that are changing lives in Michigan for the better.

Food Gatherers, a Southeast Michigan food bank, offers a job training program for youth ages 17 to 24.

Some participants are currently managing a mental illness, others have children or are primary caregivers for younger siblings—all are at risk for homelessness.

Christina Shockley, host of Michigan Radio’s Morning Edition, speaks with Mary Schlitt, director of development for Food Gatherers.

The Connection Youth Services has a new home in downtown in Howell. The program helps homeless and run-away youth. After years of fundraising they were able to buy a historic building that now serves as a drop-in center, and a home-base for its transitional-living program.

Lona Lanning is 19 years old. She’s working on meeting the requirements to get into the transitional-living program. Those requirements include volunteering 30 hours a week at The Connection and taking a life-skills class and working with counselors.

Lanning says, “Hopefully in a year from now I will be coming out of the program and have my own house set up and my kids and I will be happy and healthy.”