Street-outreach efforts aimed at homeless youth

For groups like HomeBase Youth Services, a rescue starts in a van on the street near overcrowded homeless shelters, dimly-lighted parks and other transient hang-outs.

HomeBase volunteers are recognizable on a near-nightly basis as they hand out bottles of cold water, sandwiches, donated hotel toiletries and other supplies to young people. The volunteers hope to develop relationships that land those 18- to 21-year-old youths in programs to reintegrate them into society.

Since starting in 1991, HomeBase evolved to offer programs beyond street outreach. Dozens of young adults use the Dustin D. Wolfswinkel Center for Youth at 1301 E. Almeria Road, just north of McDowell Road, daily for everything from laundry to showers to computer access.

Two other Phoenix organizations, Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development and StandUp For Kids, also offer a variety of programs that include housing alternatives to shelters traditionally occupied by sex offenders that gravitate to young people.

HomeBase provides more than 20 dorm-like rooms to a select group of young people who demonstrate the willingness to conform to a more balanced lifestyle and to avoid sleeping next to strangers in a shelter.

"We have youth who say they would rather sleep behind a bush than go to a shelter," said Christy Gibbons, senior vice president of programs for HomeBase. "They don't feel safe there. There's a huge need for a shelter like this for this age group."

Through a phased program, staff members help shift youths from a schedule of daily survival to one geared toward education, job placement and saving money.

HomeBase reserves one bed in its transitional living program for last-minute, emergency shelter placement.

"Typically, those are the kids who haven't been on the streets," Gibbons said. "They were living in an apartment, or they were living with their family and they were kicked out, and now suddenly they find themselves in a shelter.

"They're scared to death, they're afraid for their lives, they don't know what to do."

Local organizations like HomeBase only recently collaborated on street-outreach efforts with other agencies, such as Central Arizona Shelter Services, that are more focused on the greater adult homeless population than any specific demographic.

Medical services, psychiatric evaluations and other services for at-risk young adults fall to HomeBase, Tumbleweed and StandUp. Each organization uses street outreach as a means of feeding, sheltering and educating homeless youth who drift between CASS and the street.

Ben Zachariah, supervisor for adult services for CASS, works closely with youth-oriented organizations that overlap with the street outreach team he launched about one year ago.

Zachariah wants the private outreach organizations to work closer with his CASS team, which prides itself on a more "assertive" street outreach style designed to make an immediate impact on homeless adults by partnering with mental-health organizations, police and probation officers.

Not every young person encountered by street outreach teams wants help. Often, they take their handouts and walk off.

Zachariah said the organizations need to collectively develop a system where homeless people can find help based on their individual needs. For example, HomeBase often refers teens younger than 18 to Tumbleweed.

"They just keep on disappearing into the night," Zachariah said.

"You need people who know how to manage people, but who also understand the street. The whole culture has changed. Just handing something out and hoping they come back is not working."

Homebase Youth Development Specialist Ka Juan Mitchell consults with Greg Cooper, a 20-year-old homeless man living on the streets of Phoenix.