“I’ve found through my years of running a male high school residential home that there is disconnect between reality and what transition age youth views as reality. Many of these youth are forced out of programs, homes, and the foster care system unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with some of the realities they are up against. All too frequently, youths age out without having acquired the necessary skills to be successful. Since they have nowhere to go, no stable support system, nor the financial means to support themselves, they end up homeless and on the streets. Many of these youth failed to complete high school which also proves to be a barrier for obtaining employment. Many struggle with day to day living skills and social interactions. “There is hope. I have experienced positive shifts in the views and capabilities in young men I have worked with as time passed and a structure was provided. Unfortunately, in residential and foster care settings, the amount of time to teach skills, build trust, and change hearts and minds – you often cannot do the latter without changing the former first -- is limited. Upon admission, a strategic plan is set in place to deal with a specific group of behaviors, trauma, or treatment. But typically, by the time positive changes became visible through behavior, it is time for that individual to discharge because of their age, leaving an unfinished project. In instances where youth successfully complete the residential program, I have also observed they often have nowhere to transition to and no supports to hold them up after they discharge. This inevitably and eventually caused a regression in progress.

“Transitional age youth are one of the fastest growing homeless populations. The amount of youth aging out of foster care each year in Michigan and the hundreds sleeping on the streets in Kent County each night is tragic. It is a collective disturbance within our communities that perpetuates itself. It is a dysfunction that is sorely under-addressed. This is the basis for SPSH to exist: To provide immediate and lasting solutions, one young person at a time, and to transform communities in the process. These youth, who’s potential and options are limitless if they can be boosted above the obstacles they are up against, require unique support and housing services that responds to their developmental needs so that they can learn to care for themselves, build relationships, and transition into self-sufficiency. “But they need a chance and a place to go. SPSH can be both.”