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YouthHarbors' mission is to prevent kids from becoming homeless and work with
them to find housing or stabilize their housing so that they can graduate high
school. Our goal is to work with the youth who are enrolled and currently
attending high school
and who are unaccompanied or without their families
Last year,
my grades were good but 'cause of my home situation when I was living with
my mom and my stepdad was abusing her. Every time I would go home, I couldn't study
and my grades were really poor.
when life is in flux it's really hard to concentrate on your homework
and your papers and that kind of thing.
What YouthHarbors does is it puts the basic foundation pieces in place
so the students can then focus on school.
We provide actual housing for
all of the kids if they need it. We work to provide stabilisation if they're
not quite homeless but on the verge of becoming homeless. We make sure they have
food, clothes, and we help the kids obtain jobs or looking into college. Our belief is by
providing kids with housing and all of the other supportive services they need that
are non-academic we allow them to stay focused and continuing attending school so
they can graduate. The program helped me
with a home
and food...a place to just be safe
and where I could focus and I
comscore
can go back. Because without that program, I would have dropped school. High school is so hard.
It's a miracle anybody makes it through, but especially
somebody who was just
homeless not too long ago, somebody who doesn't have a family to support them.
We've had both the community onboard who wanted to help their school and the students in
the school
We've had high schools committed to do whatever it takes to keep their kids
enrolled and help them graduate. It's a very community-based program. Because of
the support they're getting from YouthHarbors in the school
they literally bounce in here every morning,
smiles on their faces, ready to go to school,
ready to make their lives better. Three months later, I was back on track
with my life. My school grades have improved
and I have a safe place to live. Now I have time to think about how to plan my
future.
We know that this is a national issue.
If Massachusetts has 6,000 students, there are countless other numbers of students across
the country who are in the same situation. So our goals for expansion are to
replicate the model,
both within the state of Massachusetts and I think then we look at the
northeast region and hopefully nationally. You actually see kids improve
their lives
with support from
YouthHarbors in the school.
Without that program, I would be in the street right now.
It's cause of them that I'm here. I'm going to graduate in June 2012.
I'm really proud of myself.