Oakland has some of the highest cost real estate in the state. The San Francisco Chronicle recently featured an Oakland home that was sold for $1 million over the asking price.
This is just one example of the out-of-control housing market that has left many homeless, including youth. On any given night, over 800 youth experience homelessness in the greater East Bay, which includes Oakland and Berkeley. Of this total, 78% are unsheltered, often living in dangerous conditions on the street.
Help is on the way, thanks in part to a planning grant provided by John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY) to EveryOne Home, an Oakland-based organization working to prevent and end homelessness.
JBAY approached EveryOne Home after conducting an analysis that showed California was receiving 9% of federal funding for homeless youth, even though a third of homeless youth nationally live in California. JBAY’s goal was to support a successful federal application to serve homeless youth in California.
EveryOne Home quickly responded to JBAY’s offer and used the planning grant to hire an experienced grant writer. It paid off: on September 15th, EveryOne Home was notified that their application was selected to receive a $6.6 million grant to address youth homelessness from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
According to EveryOne Home Executive Director Chelsea Andrews, JBAY’s planning grant helped take the application across the finish line, “The funding provided by JBAY ensured we had the most competitive application possible,” said Andrews. “Thank you JBAY for your valuable investment and partnership and look forward to the impact this will have on our youth experiencing homelessness.”
Former foster youth and JBAY Youth Advocate Cody Van Felden knows the difference that access to safe, stable housing can make. “It is essential to address homelessness while people are young. I first became homeless in the middle of my first semester of college. When I was finally in a stable home I passed with straight A’s, graduated with honors and earned three degrees.”
JBAY’s Director of Housing and Health Simone Tureck Lee says this award, one of the four made in California this year, is long overdue. “This funding allows communities to develop and execute coordinated plans to prevent and end youth homelessness. In the state with the single-largest population of homeless youth in the country, these types of resources are desperately needed to address the youth homelessness crisis.”