Wind Youth Services

Wind Youth Services and Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada, Inc. announced they have joined forces to help move more youth from homelessness and unemployment to stable housing, jobs and self-reliance.

Both organizations believe the real solution to helping people break the cycle of poverty and homelessness includes a comprehensive and coordinated approach that provides both short-term and long-term opportunities, incorporating wrap-around services including food, housing, employment opportunities, community referrals and other support.

This unique partnership will position Wind and Goodwill as regional leaders in delivering services to homeless youth in the Sacramento area. Wind will continue to offer all of its regular services for which they are known and respected, while maintaining its unique identity, mission statement and Board of Directors.

“Wind has been focused on providing support services and opportunities to youth experiencing homelessness,” said Suzi Dotson, Wind’s executive director. “This strategic alliance will leverage both agencies’ respective expertise in moving Sacramento’s young people to self-sufficiency.”

“Goodwill’s mission footprint in Sacramento will be broadened by its relationship with Wind Youth Services,” said Joe Mendez, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada, Inc. “Our vocational programs will offer Wind’s clients opportunities to develop job skills that are portable to other industries. The close mission alignment of our organizations creates a real opportunity to assist Sacramento homeless youth move into stable housing situations and employment.”

Goodwill recently issued a $10,000 community challenge to help raise funds to keep Wind’s adolescent shelter open through the end of the year. A total of over $135,000 was raised through that challenge.

Wind’s youth shelters will remain open and operational in their current locations. Wind’s administrative offices will temporarily move to the Goodwill Corporate office on Folsom Blvd, while the Teen Drop-in Center moves to a Next Move-owned facility in Oak Park until an affordable location is identified.

“We appreciate the opportunity to partner with Goodwill,” said Wind Youth Service Board Chair Robert E. Beaudry. “The infrastructure provided by Goodwill will allow Wind to focus on its mission of supporting homeless youth in our community. I am a firm believer in leveraging shared services, and Goodwill has provided that opportunity.”

We are excited to announce that our new drop-in location has officially opened! Drop-in services are now available at:

3671 5th Ave.
Sacramento CA 95820

Wind Youth Services is hitting the streets every day to hand out sack lunches and other necessary items all summer long!! We’re going to where the youth are! Already this week we’ve handed out 40 sack lunches, but WE NEED YOUR HELP!

We are looking for donations of sack lunch items like:

sandwich meat & cheese, sandwich bread, fruit – apples, bananas, oranges or fruit cups are best – cliff bars and granola bars, fruit snacks, dried fruit & nuts, treats – cookies, candy, gum, etc – small bags of chips, juice, and lots of bottled water!

Donations can be dropped off during business hours to 1722 J Street, 3rd Floor or email ashley@windyouth.org for more info!

Looking for other ways to help? Check out our Wish List

Headshot of Suzi DotsonSACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 8, 2014 — Susan Dotson starts today as executive director at WIND Youth Services, bringing with her more than 17 years of experience in leading organizations dedicated to helping children and families.

Most recently, Dotson managed the California Department of Social Services’ Child Welfare Policy and Program Development Bureau in Sacramento. Previously, she worked at the Sacramento Children’s Home since 2006, first serving as a family resource center coordinator at its Valley Hi Family Resource Center and Birth & Beyond Program, and then as program manager at its Sacramento Crisis Nursery.

“Suzi brings a vision and energy that is needed at Wind,” said Chris Russell, board chair at WIND Youth Services. “We were really impressed by her plans to work on collaboration with other organizations within the continuum of care for homeless and foster youth.”

WIND Youth Services is the Sacramento region’s only resource for helping homeless youth escape life on the streets, offering multiple programs that include shelter and counseling. For more information and to learn how to donate and support, visit WIND Youth Services online at windyouth.org.

HuffingtonPostUK – Adnan Al-Daini

It is not a good time to be young. Our youth are bearing the brunt of the economic depression and its self-defeating solution of austerity and cuts. The future to them looks bleak; unemployment, debt and homelessness in various combinations, or all three beckon. Of course these three scourges (unemployment-debt-homelessness) are linked.

Youth unemployment (16-24 years old) is now 20.7 % in the UK. The average across the EU is 22.4%, with Greece and Spain leading the misery index at 52.8 % and 52.7 % respectively.

A report entitled “Youth unemployment: the crisis we cannot afford” produced by ACEVO (Association of Chief Executive of Voluntary Organisations) puts the human cost thus:

“Unemployment hurts at any age; but for young people, long-term unemployment scars for life. It means lower earnings, more unemployment, [and] more ill health later in life. It means more inequality between rich and poor – because the pain hits the most disadvantaged.”

The report quantifies the financial cost as follows:

“The human misery of youth unemployment is also a time-bomb under the nation’s finances. At its current rates, in 2012 youth unemployment will cost the [British] exchequer £4.8 billion (more than the budget for further education for 16-to-19-year-olds in England) and cost the economy £10.7 billion in lost output. But the costs are not just temporary. The scarring effects of youth unemployment at its current levels will ratchet up further future costs of £2.9 billion per year for the exchequer (equivalent to the entire annual budget for Jobcentre Plus) and £6.3 billion p.a. for the economy in lost output. The net present value of the cost to the Treasury, even looking only a decade ahead, is approximately £28 billion.”

A study in the US on the effects of unemployment on crime concludes:

“We find significantly positive effects of unemployment on property crime rates that are stable across model specifications. Our estimates suggest that a substantial portion of the decline in property crime rates during the 1990s is attributable to the decline in the unemployment rate.”

“Unemployment sucks. Youth unemployment sucks even more”, as one business school professor puts it.

Faced with such personal, societal and financial costs, the response of governments has been at best complacent, but more accurately described as negligent. You would think the scourge of unemployment would be prioritized and made central to any actions that are taken. Instead, governments have put deficit reduction at the centre of their economic policy, and ignored its impact on society.

It is no good saying the solution we are pursuing will in the long run produce the required result, not if it blights the lives of a significant number of our youth. As someone said “in the long run we will all be dead”.

Moving to homelessness, according to figures published by the department for communities and local government, 48,510 households meet the definition of statutory homelessness in 2011, a jump of 14% on the previous year. Research for the charity Crisis, found that the vast majority of homeless single people are “hidden” and outside government statistics.

If you are lucky enough to go to university you will be finishing your coursewith a debt of around £53,000. With such debts, graduates will be reluctant to take additional debt in the form of a mortgage, and with the price of housing, most will not be earning enough to get a mortgage.

Additionally, scarcity of affordable rented dwellings will force many graduates to live with their parents, thus delaying their entry into adulthood and independence. What effect will that have on their self esteem, mobility of labour, and at what cost to the economy!

There is evidence that the rise in university fees is putting off students from modest and poor backgrounds, which will impact negatively on social mobility, thus deepening the income inequality and division in our society. Reversing the rise is a good investment in Britain’s future.

Investing taxpayers’ money in massive building programmes of affordable housing would provide work for many of our young, and would help with labour mobility. It would provide for a basic need, and would prove cheaper to the taxpayer in the long run.

Loading most of the misery of the economic depression on our youth is morally wrong, economically mad, and eventually self-defeating.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adnan-aldaini/unemployment-homelessness_b_1853717.html

HomelessnessLaw.org

A new report released today by the Law Center and the National Network for Youth reveals a disturbing truth: 1.6 million youth experience homelessness without a parent or guardian each year, facing numerous barriers to meeting basic needs.

I’ve gotten used to calling the issues we work on “forgotten” or “unseen” crises.  That can sound a little trite, but I don’t know how else to describe the media’s failure to cover homelessness, or the lack of public outcry in the face of human suffering.  Here, again, I wonder: how can we be ignoring this?

The new report, Alone Without a Home, explains why these kids become homeless.  Common causes include severe family conflict, parental abuse or neglect, a parent’s mental health issues, and substance abuse.  Prior to leaving home, almost half of all unaccompanied youth report being beaten by a caretaker, while one out of four had caretakers request sexual activity.

It’s horrifying to think of any child being homeless—but to suffer through it alone?  And even worse, to have become homeless because your parents didn’t care for you?  I can’t imagine what that’s like.  While the presidential and Congressional candidates rattle off their plans to address debt, taxes, and Iran, these kids are struggling every day to meet their most basic needs.

Alone Without a Home reviews current laws affecting unaccompanied homeless youth in all 50 states and 6 U.S. territories.  Laws widely vary from state to state, and youth and community groups have a hard time clarifying their legal protections and eligibility for housing, health care, and education benefits.  Moreover, many unaccompanied youth don’t seek out help because they assume they’ll be turned away, or even fear being taken into state custody.

Alone Without a Home  recommends eliminating laws that criminally punish unaccompanied youth as “runaways” or “truants,” in favor of policies that divert them from court involvement.  It also calls on states to expand access to housing, health care, education, and other stabilizing services.  This includes allowing youth to contract for housing, receive medical treatment, and enroll in school without parental consent.

Laws are complicated.  Sometimes they’re written poorly, and sometimes they’re applied wrong.  What isn’t complicated is our responsibility as Americans to young people who need a helping hand.  This report explains the problem and even offers solutions, but words on a page don’t put kids in the classroom.  We have to take what we’ve learned and push our elected officials to address the unique needs of unaccompanied youth.

To read the full report, click here.