Story highlights:
- After finding herself homeless as a teenager, Cassandra connected with Ottawa’s Youth Services Bureau (YSB).
- YSB’s Transitional Housing for Homeless Youth program, powered by United Way East Ontario, gave her a safe, stable environment where she was able to gain critical life skills while being able to plan for her future.
- YSB says there are a variety of circumstances that can lead to a young person becoming homeless and disconnected from their families, including experiencing addictions, mental health issues, or poverty.
- United Way partners with YSB to help set youth up for a more stable future by ensuring they have access to shelter and the resources they need to succeed.
At 15, Cassandra discovered she had been misdiagnosed with epilepsy. Her doctors recommended she undergo brain surgery to stop her seizures, but that left her having to re-learn how to read, write and talk.
Unfortunately, her family was unable to help care for her in the way she needed, and she found herself homeless just eight months later. Unsure of where to turn, Cassandra attended a local mental health walk-in clinic offered by the Youth Services Bureau (YSB).
“I was just trying to strategize. ‘Can I move out? Does this make sense? Am I going to be okay?’ At the end of the day, I just wanted to be normal, I wanted to graduate high school like everyone else,” she explains. “I had the surgery to be normal and I was just like, ‘How am I going to do this all on my own?’ So I went to that YSB location and received a bunch of resources and finally got into the shelter.”
For Cassandra, this was a lifeline. YSB’s Transitional Housing Program for Young Women offered the support and stability she needed.
“It gave me a place to sleep, it was a roof over my head and that gave me the opportunity to care about myself. I could get to a point where I could reach my goals, be the person I wanted to be and meet the milestones all the other youth my age were reaching.”
Supporting vulnerable youth
YSB’s Transitional Housing Program, powered by United Way East Ontario, provides a safe environment for vulnerable youth between 16 and 21.
“A lot of times when people come to us, and they have been disconnected from their families for a variety of different reasons – young people experiencing addictions, mental health issues, poverty – there’s a lot of reasons why they come to us and at YSB. In partnership with United Way, the big thing that we offer is the ability to create stability in the lives of the young people.”
Many young people that find themselves homeless don’t get the opportunity to learn essential life skills that they may have otherwise picked up from their parents or family members of origin. To set them up for success, YSB teaches them things like how to make a budget, go grocery shopping, use public transit, do laundry and more.
This all happens under YSB’s ‘youth choice and youth voice’ model.
“Our programming is something that the young person is very heavily involved in.” says Mike. “Youth voice and youth choice is instrumental in the work we do because frankly you can’t do anything without someone’s buy in and have it be successful. What we want to see is the empowerment in youth, the involvement in their decisions, and acknowledging that their decisions matter and that they are going to impact their lives, and they do have a choice.”
Over the last few years, Mike has seen first-hand the impact of increasing rent costs and a housing crisis in Ottawa. It’s led to challenges in transitioning youth into the next steps of their lives.
“COVID really shined a light on what was missing in terms of support. United Way has really been incredibly helpful in terms of doing outreach campaigns to the community and getting the word out and providing for a lot of the things that we really need.”
Making a difference
With the support of United Way East Ontario, YSB has been able to help Cassandra build the life she wants for herself. She’s now living on her own, with a partner, and has even launched her own youth-led nonprofit called Potential In Youth Services, dedicated to strategically providing resources to at-risk, homeless, and newcomer youth in the Ottawa area.
Without a roof over your head, it’s nearly impossible to take care of your mental health, stay focused at work, or plan for the future.
Finding affordable housing is even harder for newcomers to our country, youth forced to leave home, women fleeing violence, and many others struggling to make ends meet.
