November 30, 2024 • 17 mins
November is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, and here in Massachusetts, thousands of young people find themselves struggling to find a safe space to lay their head each night, something that's becoming even more difficult as we make our way into the winter months. Bridge Over Troubled Waters in Boston is a non-profit working with young people experiencing homelessness in Greater Boston to ensure they have a safer, brighter future ahead. President and CEO Elisabeth Jackson returns to the show to talk with Nichole about the factors fueling this trend, and how you can help them assist these young people as they turn their lives around.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week we come together right here, we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you, by the way,
It is so good to be with you this weekend.
Thankful for you every weekend. I'm Nicole Davis. Okay, it
took a while, but finally we're starting to get that
(00:28):
typical fall whether we see here in New England, those
chilli nights, in those crisp days, they do feel good,
but if you're experiencing homelessness, unfortunately, it just adds another
layer of stress onto a situation that's already pretty difficult.
We've talked about homelessness here on the show, even just recently,
but this week we're focusing on young people. See November
(00:48):
is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, and all over the country,
millions of teens and even younger kids are finding themselves
without a safe place to lay their head. Instead, they
catch a few hours of sleep at a time in
public places like food courts and train stations and airports.
They wash up where they can, and they're trying to
figure out what exactly comes next. Elizabeth Jackson is the
(01:08):
president and CEO of Bridge Over Troubled Waters. They're a
nonprofit here in Boston and Elizabeth, it is wonderful to
have you back on the show. Thank you so much
for being here. For those unfamiliar, give us a bit
more info about the work you're doing at Bridge and
how you're working with these kids to try and get
them on a better path.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Bridge otob Waters is a multi service youth agency that
works with young people ages fourteen to twenty four. And
I would say with the University of Life Skills for Kids,
we work with homeless, runaway and our risk youth and
we provide a little bit of everything to stabilize our
young people. So anything from emergency housing, placement, medical attention
(01:48):
than to attention, housing, counseling, education, street outreach, and really
behavioral health therapy. Really working with our young people to
make sure that they're invicte path And we've been around
for over fifty years. We were started in a or
late sixties and we're providing. We've grown since and we
(02:10):
keep providing. We see about two thousand young people a
year and we see we're living with us. We have
about over two hundred and fifty young people that live
in some of our property and also on extended our
partnerships that we have with landlords.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, so let's talk about the scope of youth homelessness
here in Massachusetts because November is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month.
How big is the problem here? You would say, right now,
I would.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Say, if we look at according to Chapinhall Voices of
Youth count survey, it says that one in ten youth
young adults between the ages eighteen and twenty five and
that have at least one night of homelessness, and at
least one and thirty adolescent ages thirteen to seventeen I
(02:58):
experience some form of homelessness throughout the US in a year.
Using that data, that's the national data, and using that data,
that means it approximately around eleven thousand young people young
adults in the Boston area ages fourteen to twenty five
experience some form of homelessness each year.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's a lot of kids. And what are the factors, like,
what are some of the factors driving these kids out
onto the street.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
It's very individualizing, It's very different for each child, right,
so some of them are aging out of the the
social system, the DCFDYSDMH that they are aging now, the
family situations, who they love, substance abuse. There's definitely different
(03:46):
for each individual young person that is struggling for our
family poverty, if the family is already living in a
type situation. Rent is very expensive in Boston message just
in general, even they have a full time job. You know,
it says the data says that you have to make
over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to have a
(04:08):
one bedroom apartment in a city of Boston, right, And
so young people are not having they don't have that
type of income.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
No, it's hard to get that kind of income anywhere
at this point, frankly, you know, and that's a really
good point. Like over the past few years, obviously we've
seen hiking rents, and we've seen inflation and food and uh,
you know, COVID really put a huge dent in the
job market as well. Are you seeing more demand for
your services lately as opposed to a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yes, we are seeing a big demand in our services,
especially in the winter months. We often have seen an
increase in you've that we're servicing, especially in our transitional
day program. You know, we see when we're see in
about one hundred young people a month, new young people
coming into our agency, it says a lot about how
(04:58):
young people are struggling the homeless. Youth Muff is also
providing awareness so young people can come to us sooner
than later. And it's not a taboo conversation because our
young people are hitting in plane site. They're the ones
bagging your gross groceries. They're the ones going to college
with your son and daughters. They are the ones writing
(05:18):
the commuter rail with you on the tee. They're hitting
in plane sight. They're not outside in the park with
bags and pushing a card. That's not who they are.
So when they're serving you your coffee at your favorite
coffee shop, you will not know who they are. And
so we are definitely the cost of living is increasing
(05:39):
so much that we're definitely seeing young people coming to
us and they're hitting in plant site.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And you brought up a really good point in that
most of these kids, I'd say the vast majority of
these kids, they don't want to be homeless. I don't
think anybody really wants to be homeless. And it's you know,
I hear a lot of Oh they must be lazy.
Oh they must not be working. Oh they must not
want to put some effort into it. Pull yourself up
by your bootstraps. But it just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It doesn't work that way, and it's not our young people.
You know, I can have the team. The data shows
that they a lot of them are. Fifty percent of
them graduated high school, some of them are, most of
them are in college. They're doing great work, they just
can't afford it. And they're also young developmentally eighteen and
nineteen to be able to manage the system of social
(06:27):
services and support and being it's embarrassing, especially if you're
a young person in college. You're embarrassed to tell somebody
else who don't have a place to live, and you
know where you're going, and Thanksgiving and when everybody goes home,
what happens and they show up in our doorsteps because
they don't have anywhere to go. But they're hitting in
playing sight. They're not out there drug addicts and being lazy.
(06:53):
That's that's completely not true. We see over two thousand
young people a year and if temper send us struggling
with being out and about the rest are out serving
you coffee this morning, or being the security guard at
your apartment building. They probably were the one that opened
the door for you and you didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
My goodness, So and you brought up the wintertime, which
it doesn't really feel like winter right now, to be honest,
But we will eventually see some snow here because we
always do in colder temperatures. What can you provide for
these kids and what are you seeing when it comes
to a need for kids in that time of year?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
The winter month simply makes it even more difficult for
young people to find a safe place or warm shelter.
So many end up in sleeping in public places like
the library, the full court, the airport, or on a tea.
Best of you, and it can be the only way
to get out of the cold, right And so what
we provide the cod with also makes it harder for
(07:50):
our young people to survive life outside the summer it's
okay to sleep outside, not in the winter. It's so cold,
especially when they don't have a cent so like a
warm coat, which we provide, We provide socks, we provide handwarmers,
We provide items for them to protect them from the elements.
A bridge, that can come in and get these items
(08:11):
for free. They can also come in and we do
have a wait list. Unfortunately, it's really sad during the
winter in the month were working with the state to
extend our beds and time for our young people to
be here at Bridge. But we provide food, clothing, a
place that they can are able to work on their schoolwork,
(08:34):
that they're able to wash their clothes, to take a shower,
and food is a big one here when you have
teenagers because they're hungry all the time and that's a
normal thing to go through. But we provide a stable
for civilization for them and some that are at home,
and we also work with parents or if they're staying
at someone's couch. But during the winter months it's hard.
(08:56):
The person cannot provide a food anymore for them because
it's become inexpensive. We also provide incentives to our tour
three months so that they don't have the young person
out on the street, and we provide incentives for those
families and say if you can keep them with you
for the next two or three months, that will be great.
We'll provide some food support and so forth.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's great, and medical care too. You've got your mobile
medical van if I remember correctly. And you also do
mental health assistance as well, which is incredibly helpful for
people who are really being going through trauma when they're
out there on the streets.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, homelessness trauma within itself, just being out there not
knowing what you're going to eat and knowing where you're
going to sleep, or making decisions because you're so desperate
that put you in a most worst predicament, right and
sleeping with somebody for the night because that you got
somewhere warm. And our young people make decisions that are impulsive,
(09:49):
and we provide mental health is very important. So when
I say the University of Life Skills is really teaching
young people every our cart services that they can get
through and support. And it's not we do a harm
reduction model here. We don't judge you because you're out
smoking and drinking. If I had to sleep out there
last night with that rain, I need to be drinking
(10:11):
and high myself because it's not fun walking around with
wet feet and you're nowhere to go and it gets scary.
So that is you know, it's not something we use
against our young people, and we understand that they're trying
to get by, and so it's a really challenging for
them during this time as well. Yeah, and medical and
(10:33):
mental health is very important because if you have wet
feet and you don't have good socks to change into,
that becomes fungused and an infection, and now we have
other issues and our goal is to really start preventing
all that and really do a lot of harm reduction.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Well, what I really wanted to highlight here is you
have a brand new facility. It's opened up in Brighton.
It's called the bruns and Liberty House. So tell me
a little bit about the house and how it all
came to ye.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It's pride and joy. Mister Richard Brunson was worked at
Bridge as a therapist a counselor here for over forty years.
He just recently retired. Usually social workers do not get
recognized for all their hard work. And we're our partner
Liberty Mutual. We already have a Liberty Mutual house in
(11:24):
Dorchester and at the Liberty House, and they wanted to
have another house and we needed to have another house
for the young people because we do have a weight list,
and so we were able to name it with the
partnership with Liberty Mutual the Brunts and Liberty House, and
this is our second independent living program that opened in June.
It's creative for you. Woof. I've graduated from our Transitional
(11:46):
living program, so I would say our transitional living program
it's like high school. It's twenty four hour supervised they're
teaching you your learning skills to be independent. Once you
graduate from there, you move into our Brunson Lift House
where you master those skills. So I would say Brunton
Liverty Houses like college. You know, you send your kids out.
You hope you taught them how to cook and clean
(12:07):
and wash clothes, and now they buy themselves and you
hope they learn it, but they're still under your umbrella.
That's what I would say Brunts and Liberty House. So
these in the house, they will the young adults can
pay in affordable rent, so it's provated about two hundred
and fifty dollars a month while they are attending school
and going to work and saving to get their own place.
(12:30):
Some of them have bought their own places up from
our first Liberty House, Core Hurt and twenty eighteen on
his own place, which is great and then it's really
to help them independence and not be in the social
service system forever. We are thrilled to open the house
in partnership with Liberty Mutual, who gave us one point
(12:52):
three million dollars towards the purchase of the house. So
it really supports young people. I think we have this
expectational they're going to school, they go to work, they
can do it by themselves. But I have teenagers I'm
not sure about you, and they're both in college and
they need us to send I had just send twenty
five dollars for my dollars to do laundry in college. Right,
(13:13):
So our young people don't have that. They have bridge
and for us to be able to have them at
at Brunson Liberty House that we just open. They rent
low and we support them saving money and making sure
that they're going to school to get to the next level.
Financial literacy is very important because they don't have anyone
else to send them to twenty five dollars cash apper
(13:36):
here there they have themselves and it's really important for
us to provide that safe way out for them so
they don't come back. And we have such great success
rate of doing so and that's more important for us
because it costs us a little bit more now, but
in the future it will cost the tax payers very
no less money to have any of these young people
(13:56):
in the social service system because they don't need a
Section eight housing volves, they won't need food stamps, they
won't need these services because we were able to teach
them how to take care of themselves, and if they
need it, it's great, it's there for them. But we
were able to teach them how to save, how to
take care of themselves, how to finish college, how to
get a good job, and how to continue to be prosperous.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yes, and all that does take resources on your part,
and obviously, as you mentioned, we're getting into the winter
months when those resources will be challenged. How can people
help you out? Do you need volunteers? Do you need money?
Do you need food? What can people?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Do we need? All the abus you can go on
to have on our website Wwwbridge OTW dot org. There's
volunteer partnerships that you can do and partner with us.
For example, at the ER we have Emergen it's called
the Emergency Residence Er for sure. Every night we serve
(14:57):
dinner for young people and we set up the the
emergency space for them, and so we need support, We
need volunteers, we need companies, you know for about fifteen
or twenty beds to help feed our young people because
they do eat a lot, so definitely go through a
lot of food. We are we raise over twelve million
(15:18):
dollars a year to support our young people. Eighty percent
of those dollars that are raised, it all goes into
the services of our young people. So there's ways to
provide our financial support and anything from five dollars to
two dollars to wherever your pocket takes you. It's it's
greatly appreciated. Donate coats. There's different ways that you can support,
(15:41):
but mostly understanding that they are hitting in plain sight.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram. Really talk about young people
being on the streets with the stat says one in
ten eighteen to twenty five are experiencing that one out
of homelessance that's one young and a football team that's
(16:02):
one young person, and a basketball team, a cheer team,
what other team's volleyball team? Do these young people that
are there and they're giving you coffee and it's really
let's talk about it. Let's not be it's not making shameful,
and let's support because they are future, right, and that's important.
So just getting the word out, it's really important. We
(16:23):
do have a campaign right now that's called what I Say,
What I Mean, And it's really important that you know,
young people are sleeping in someone's couch and they're right there.
You don't even know that they don't have a place
to go. So it's really important that we talk about
this and not make it shameful.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Elizabeth Jackson at Bridge Over Troubled Waters, really appreciate your time.
Great to have you back, and have a safe and
healthy winter, have.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
A safe and healthy well winter, and thank you so
much for thinking about our young people during the time.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
All right, have a safe and healthy and happy holiday weekend,
Please enjoy yourself. Join us again next week for another
edition of the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News
Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week we come together right here, we talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you, by the way,
It is so good to be with you this weekend.
Thankful for you every weekend. I'm Nicole Davis. Okay, it
took a while, but finally we're starting to get that
(00:28):
typical fall whether we see here in New England, those
chilli nights, in those crisp days, they do feel good,
but if you're experiencing homelessness, unfortunately, it just adds another
layer of stress onto a situation that's already pretty difficult.
We've talked about homelessness here on the show, even just recently,
but this week we're focusing on young people. See November
(00:48):
is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, and all over the country,
millions of teens and even younger kids are finding themselves
without a safe place to lay their head. Instead, they
catch a few hours of sleep at a time in
public places like food courts and train stations and airports.
They wash up where they can, and they're trying to
figure out what exactly comes next. Elizabeth Jackson is the
(01:08):
president and CEO of Bridge Over Troubled Waters. They're a
nonprofit here in Boston and Elizabeth, it is wonderful to
have you back on the show. Thank you so much
for being here. For those unfamiliar, give us a bit
more info about the work you're doing at Bridge and
how you're working with these kids to try and get
them on a better path.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Bridge otob Waters is a multi service youth agency that
works with young people ages fourteen to twenty four. And
I would say with the University of Life Skills for Kids,
we work with homeless, runaway and our risk youth and
we provide a little bit of everything to stabilize our
young people. So anything from emergency housing, placement, medical attention
(01:48):
than to attention, housing, counseling, education, street outreach, and really
behavioral health therapy. Really working with our young people to
make sure that they're invicte path And we've been around
for over fifty years. We were started in a or
late sixties and we're providing. We've grown since and we
(02:10):
keep providing. We see about two thousand young people a
year and we see we're living with us. We have
about over two hundred and fifty young people that live
in some of our property and also on extended our
partnerships that we have with landlords.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, so let's talk about the scope of youth homelessness
here in Massachusetts because November is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month.
How big is the problem here? You would say, right now,
I would.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Say, if we look at according to Chapinhall Voices of
Youth count survey, it says that one in ten youth
young adults between the ages eighteen and twenty five and
that have at least one night of homelessness, and at
least one and thirty adolescent ages thirteen to seventeen I
(02:58):
experience some form of homelessness throughout the US in a year.
Using that data, that's the national data, and using that data,
that means it approximately around eleven thousand young people young
adults in the Boston area ages fourteen to twenty five
experience some form of homelessness each year.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's a lot of kids. And what are the factors, like,
what are some of the factors driving these kids out
onto the street.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
It's very individualizing, It's very different for each child, right,
so some of them are aging out of the the
social system, the DCFDYSDMH that they are aging now, the
family situations, who they love, substance abuse. There's definitely different
(03:46):
for each individual young person that is struggling for our
family poverty, if the family is already living in a
type situation. Rent is very expensive in Boston message just
in general, even they have a full time job. You know,
it says the data says that you have to make
over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars to have a
(04:08):
one bedroom apartment in a city of Boston, right, And
so young people are not having they don't have that
type of income.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
No, it's hard to get that kind of income anywhere
at this point, frankly, you know, and that's a really
good point. Like over the past few years, obviously we've
seen hiking rents, and we've seen inflation and food and uh,
you know, COVID really put a huge dent in the
job market as well. Are you seeing more demand for
your services lately as opposed to a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yes, we are seeing a big demand in our services,
especially in the winter months. We often have seen an
increase in you've that we're servicing, especially in our transitional
day program. You know, we see when we're see in
about one hundred young people a month, new young people
coming into our agency, it says a lot about how
(04:58):
young people are struggling the homeless. Youth Muff is also
providing awareness so young people can come to us sooner
than later. And it's not a taboo conversation because our
young people are hitting in plane site. They're the ones
bagging your gross groceries. They're the ones going to college
with your son and daughters. They are the ones writing
(05:18):
the commuter rail with you on the tee. They're hitting
in plane sight. They're not outside in the park with
bags and pushing a card. That's not who they are.
So when they're serving you your coffee at your favorite
coffee shop, you will not know who they are. And
so we are definitely the cost of living is increasing
(05:39):
so much that we're definitely seeing young people coming to
us and they're hitting in plant site.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And you brought up a really good point in that
most of these kids, I'd say the vast majority of
these kids, they don't want to be homeless. I don't
think anybody really wants to be homeless. And it's you know,
I hear a lot of Oh they must be lazy.
Oh they must not be working. Oh they must not
want to put some effort into it. Pull yourself up
by your bootstraps. But it just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It doesn't work that way, and it's not our young people.
You know, I can have the team. The data shows
that they a lot of them are. Fifty percent of
them graduated high school, some of them are, most of
them are in college. They're doing great work, they just
can't afford it. And they're also young developmentally eighteen and
nineteen to be able to manage the system of social
(06:27):
services and support and being it's embarrassing, especially if you're
a young person in college. You're embarrassed to tell somebody
else who don't have a place to live, and you
know where you're going, and Thanksgiving and when everybody goes home,
what happens and they show up in our doorsteps because
they don't have anywhere to go. But they're hitting in
playing sight. They're not out there drug addicts and being lazy.
(06:53):
That's that's completely not true. We see over two thousand
young people a year and if temper send us struggling
with being out and about the rest are out serving
you coffee this morning, or being the security guard at
your apartment building. They probably were the one that opened
the door for you and you didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
My goodness, So and you brought up the wintertime, which
it doesn't really feel like winter right now, to be honest,
But we will eventually see some snow here because we
always do in colder temperatures. What can you provide for
these kids and what are you seeing when it comes
to a need for kids in that time of year?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
The winter month simply makes it even more difficult for
young people to find a safe place or warm shelter.
So many end up in sleeping in public places like
the library, the full court, the airport, or on a tea.
Best of you, and it can be the only way
to get out of the cold, right And so what
we provide the cod with also makes it harder for
(07:50):
our young people to survive life outside the summer it's
okay to sleep outside, not in the winter. It's so cold,
especially when they don't have a cent so like a
warm coat, which we provide, We provide socks, we provide handwarmers,
We provide items for them to protect them from the elements.
A bridge, that can come in and get these items
(08:11):
for free. They can also come in and we do
have a wait list. Unfortunately, it's really sad during the
winter in the month were working with the state to
extend our beds and time for our young people to
be here at Bridge. But we provide food, clothing, a
place that they can are able to work on their schoolwork,
(08:34):
that they're able to wash their clothes, to take a shower,
and food is a big one here when you have
teenagers because they're hungry all the time and that's a
normal thing to go through. But we provide a stable
for civilization for them and some that are at home,
and we also work with parents or if they're staying
at someone's couch. But during the winter months it's hard.
(08:56):
The person cannot provide a food anymore for them because
it's become inexpensive. We also provide incentives to our tour
three months so that they don't have the young person
out on the street, and we provide incentives for those
families and say if you can keep them with you
for the next two or three months, that will be great.
We'll provide some food support and so forth.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's great, and medical care too. You've got your mobile
medical van if I remember correctly. And you also do
mental health assistance as well, which is incredibly helpful for
people who are really being going through trauma when they're
out there on the streets.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, homelessness trauma within itself, just being out there not
knowing what you're going to eat and knowing where you're
going to sleep, or making decisions because you're so desperate
that put you in a most worst predicament, right and
sleeping with somebody for the night because that you got
somewhere warm. And our young people make decisions that are impulsive,
(09:49):
and we provide mental health is very important. So when
I say the University of Life Skills is really teaching
young people every our cart services that they can get
through and support. And it's not we do a harm
reduction model here. We don't judge you because you're out
smoking and drinking. If I had to sleep out there
last night with that rain, I need to be drinking
(10:11):
and high myself because it's not fun walking around with
wet feet and you're nowhere to go and it gets scary.
So that is you know, it's not something we use
against our young people, and we understand that they're trying
to get by, and so it's a really challenging for
them during this time as well. Yeah, and medical and
(10:33):
mental health is very important because if you have wet
feet and you don't have good socks to change into,
that becomes fungused and an infection, and now we have
other issues and our goal is to really start preventing
all that and really do a lot of harm reduction.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Well, what I really wanted to highlight here is you
have a brand new facility. It's opened up in Brighton.
It's called the bruns and Liberty House. So tell me
a little bit about the house and how it all
came to ye.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
It's pride and joy. Mister Richard Brunson was worked at
Bridge as a therapist a counselor here for over forty years.
He just recently retired. Usually social workers do not get
recognized for all their hard work. And we're our partner
Liberty Mutual. We already have a Liberty Mutual house in
(11:24):
Dorchester and at the Liberty House, and they wanted to
have another house and we needed to have another house
for the young people because we do have a weight list,
and so we were able to name it with the
partnership with Liberty Mutual the Brunts and Liberty House, and
this is our second independent living program that opened in June.
It's creative for you. Woof. I've graduated from our Transitional
(11:46):
living program, so I would say our transitional living program
it's like high school. It's twenty four hour supervised they're
teaching you your learning skills to be independent. Once you
graduate from there, you move into our Brunson Lift House
where you master those skills. So I would say Brunton
Liverty Houses like college. You know, you send your kids out.
You hope you taught them how to cook and clean
(12:07):
and wash clothes, and now they buy themselves and you
hope they learn it, but they're still under your umbrella.
That's what I would say Brunts and Liberty House. So
these in the house, they will the young adults can
pay in affordable rent, so it's provated about two hundred
and fifty dollars a month while they are attending school
and going to work and saving to get their own place.
(12:30):
Some of them have bought their own places up from
our first Liberty House, Core Hurt and twenty eighteen on
his own place, which is great and then it's really
to help them independence and not be in the social
service system forever. We are thrilled to open the house
in partnership with Liberty Mutual, who gave us one point
(12:52):
three million dollars towards the purchase of the house. So
it really supports young people. I think we have this
expectational they're going to school, they go to work, they
can do it by themselves. But I have teenagers I'm
not sure about you, and they're both in college and
they need us to send I had just send twenty
five dollars for my dollars to do laundry in college. Right,
(13:13):
So our young people don't have that. They have bridge
and for us to be able to have them at
at Brunson Liberty House that we just open. They rent
low and we support them saving money and making sure
that they're going to school to get to the next level.
Financial literacy is very important because they don't have anyone
else to send them to twenty five dollars cash apper
(13:36):
here there they have themselves and it's really important for
us to provide that safe way out for them so
they don't come back. And we have such great success
rate of doing so and that's more important for us
because it costs us a little bit more now, but
in the future it will cost the tax payers very
no less money to have any of these young people
(13:56):
in the social service system because they don't need a
Section eight housing volves, they won't need food stamps, they
won't need these services because we were able to teach
them how to take care of themselves, and if they
need it, it's great, it's there for them. But we
were able to teach them how to save, how to
take care of themselves, how to finish college, how to
get a good job, and how to continue to be prosperous.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yes, and all that does take resources on your part,
and obviously, as you mentioned, we're getting into the winter
months when those resources will be challenged. How can people
help you out? Do you need volunteers? Do you need money?
Do you need food? What can people?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Do we need? All the abus you can go on
to have on our website Wwwbridge OTW dot org. There's
volunteer partnerships that you can do and partner with us.
For example, at the ER we have Emergen it's called
the Emergency Residence Er for sure. Every night we serve
(14:57):
dinner for young people and we set up the the
emergency space for them, and so we need support, We
need volunteers, we need companies, you know for about fifteen
or twenty beds to help feed our young people because
they do eat a lot, so definitely go through a
lot of food. We are we raise over twelve million
(15:18):
dollars a year to support our young people. Eighty percent
of those dollars that are raised, it all goes into
the services of our young people. So there's ways to
provide our financial support and anything from five dollars to
two dollars to wherever your pocket takes you. It's it's
greatly appreciated. Donate coats. There's different ways that you can support,
(15:41):
but mostly understanding that they are hitting in plain sight.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram. Really talk about young people
being on the streets with the stat says one in
ten eighteen to twenty five are experiencing that one out
of homelessance that's one young and a football team that's
(16:02):
one young person, and a basketball team, a cheer team,
what other team's volleyball team? Do these young people that
are there and they're giving you coffee and it's really
let's talk about it. Let's not be it's not making shameful,
and let's support because they are future, right, and that's important.
So just getting the word out, it's really important. We
(16:23):
do have a campaign right now that's called what I Say,
What I Mean, And it's really important that you know,
young people are sleeping in someone's couch and they're right there.
You don't even know that they don't have a place
to go. So it's really important that we talk about
this and not make it shameful.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Elizabeth Jackson at Bridge Over Troubled Waters, really appreciate your time.
Great to have you back, and have a safe and
healthy winter, have.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
A safe and healthy well winter, and thank you so
much for thinking about our young people during the time.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
All right, have a safe and healthy and happy holiday weekend,
Please enjoy yourself. Join us again next week for another
edition of the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News
Radio on iHeartRadio.
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