Press release from Youth OUTright:
For the past year, a public working group in our community has been focused on understanding the needs of youth and young adults that are struggling with housing without the support of a parent or guardian. A Youth Action Board addressing Homelessness has helped guide the work. The YOUth Count is happening now. It started Jan. 29 with the Point In Time (PIT) count led by the City of Asheville that takes a snapshot on Jan. 30 of the homeless population in Asheville and Buncombe county. The city’s data will be available end of April, and we anxiously await the results. The 2018 data reported 23 unaccompanied homeless youth (using HUD definition of under 25 years old) of the 554 homeless individuals counted. Feeling this number did not accurately reflect the youth homeless population, the YOUth Count was created to focus on looking for youth and young adults at times and locations that were suggested by young adults with housing instability experience. Our initial push around the PIT count this year, found 18 or 19 under 25 year old unaccompanied youth. Since the outreach teams were compensating youth $20 cash for participating in an additional 20 minute needs assessment, the project lead is pretty sure one individual fudged his date of birth and his data will be discarded. :) We have collected needs assessment surveys from 70 youth and young adults that were homeless, couch surfing with friends, or otherwise unstably housed without a parent or guardian. Thanks to the City and County schools for helping facilitate this data collection in a confidential manner from students. Thanks to our current agencies serving our homeless population for spreading the word. Thanks to Buncombe County for a $5,000 Tipping Point grant enabling us to pay youth for their participation. Working together we can address youth and young adult homelessness.
This data will be used to inform decisions on how to spend any money we would receive from a HUD Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program grant. With the government shutdown, the grant application process has not been released yet, but we expect it any day and the working group plans to submit a Coordinated application probably in late April. This could bring a minimum of $500,000 for two years into our community. The data can also be used by local non-profits working to prevent homelessness to apply for other funding streams.
The YOUth Count team has the needs assessment survey available online until Feb. 27. They would particularly like additional input from vulnerable populations including youth with experience in justice system or foster care, pregnant or parenting youth, victims of human trafficking, and youth that identify as LGBTQ. Contact youthcountasheville@gmail.com if you would like a Spanish version of the survey. If you are under 25 and have struggled with housing in Buncombe county without a caring adult to guide you, please visit @youthcountasheville on Facebook for the link. While we don’t have the funds to pay each participant $20, we will have a drawing for $20 gift cards on 2/27. Five chances to win. Limit one survey per person. Please let your voice be heard.
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