News & Updates from YouthCare
Be sure to also read our earlier blog post recapping Pride celebrations with our Casa de los Amigos youth in February. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and our world’s ongoing fight to seek justice for Black lives, Pride celebrations at YouthCare looked very different than years past. We wanted to share with you… Read More of “How We Honored Pride This Year”
Like many workplaces across the country, YouthCare had to quickly adapt to the “new normal” of COVID-19. Through creative problem-solving and community support, we have continued to provide high-quality care to young people while simultaneously navigating an unprecedented economic and public health crisis. The pandemic has increased rates of homelessness, unemployment, and food insecurity across… Read More of “Food for Thought”
All Home King County released its January 2020 Point-in-Time count results last week and there is cause for both hope and concern. While the count’s methodology has multiple limitations—such as exempting people who are couch-surfing and relying on volunteers to literally count people sleeping outside on one given night—the count offers us a consistent snapshot… Read More of “YouthCare Responds to 2020 Count Us In Results”
“We grow up in a world where we’ve been institutionalized to not celebrate our Blackness.” – Cole, YouthCare staff On Juneteenth, YouthCare staff held a beautiful virtual and in-person celebration for staff and young people. Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”—a song often broadcasted during Black Lives Matter protests across the country—played in the background as staff logged… Read More of “Celebrating Black Excellence on Juneteenth and Every Day”
Five years ago, King County and the City of Seattle declared a state of emergency on homelessness. Nevertheless, despite modest declines in subpopulations like families and youth, homelessness rates continued to rise almost every year. As thousands of new workers arrived daily, the region’s affordable housing stock shrank. Rents skyrocketed, historic Black and Brown neighborhoods… Read More of “YouthCare Endorses JumpStart Seattle Payroll Tax”
Our world is hurting and hungry for change. Black people in this country are leading a fight for justice—a fight against four hundred years of racism and violence that continues to threaten Black lives and livelihoods. In just the last year, YouthCare lost eight young people. Seven of them were Black. Two of them died at the hands… Read More of “YouthCare’s CEO: Reflections on Courage & Change”
As peaceful protestors across this city have demanded justice against racism and brutality, they’ve faced police clad in military-grade riot gear. Sound grenades. Tear gas. Rubber bullets. Our streets look like a warzone. Last Friday, Mayor Durkan and Chief Best issued a 30-day suspension of the use of tear gas, which was banned from warfare… Read More of “Mayor Durkan: Defund. Reform. Redistribute. Reinvest.”
There is an undeniable link between youth homelessness and institutionalized racism. We are a country that has disenfranchised communities of color, limiting their economic viability and access to opportunity through a system of laws and policies. Systems of oppression that steal childhoods from youth of color who are pushed out of schools and into the… Read More of “YouthCare Stands in Solidarity: Say Their Names. Protest. Educate. Give. Vote.”
It has been over two months since Washington State began its shelter-place-order and YouthCare reconfigured our program models and services. Through this time, YouthCare worked on contingency planning for how to respond if a youth or staff tested positive for COVID-19. We’re grateful that when COVID-19 recently arrived at YouthCare’s Orion Center, and then YouthCare’s… Read More of “COVID-19 Update: Resilience Abounds”
“What I have in the back of my head is we can’t do everything. So for the twenty-five people we do have and are helping, that’s a win,” said YouthCare’s Senior Program Manager of Engagement Services Charese Jones in a story for the Seattle Times. Her coworker, Semone Andu, said the crisis has laid bare… Read More of “Coronavirus brings ‘a whole other layer of trauma’ for workers who serve homeless people”
