By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Pivotal Point Transitional Housing in St. Joseph is putting a concentrated focus on solving the problem of youth homelessness in the area..
Executive Director of Pivotal Point Melissa Frakes says Pivotal Point has seen a rising need in housing youth; 17-20
Frakes says the problem of homelessness in those ages has been rising, not only in Buchanan County, but across the nation.
"That's an age group that has been flying under the radar because they've couch surfed, or they've been living in their car, or they just find a place to live so they're not on the streets necessarily," Frakes tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. "But they don't have secure housing, and over the past three years we've actually been piloting that youth program in our adult building."
Pivotal Point is launching a campaign to fund a new facility that will house 12 youth residents. It's a two phase project that totals $4,000,000, the first phase of the project will break ground when the $2,000,000 goal is hit.
Pivotal Point is looking to build the new youth facility, after having to turn away 80-percent of applicants from youth age 17-20.
Director of Housing Operations Lisa Robinson says the hope is that a new facility, along with Pivotal Points youth education program, could have the potential to bring a generational end to poverty
"That's what we're hoping and praying for that this would be the opportunity to teach them the life skills that they never learned growing up for whatever reason, you know, learning how to cook, learning how to take care of your own place," Robinson says. "You know we just started our youth life skill, a scheduled time for them to come together."
The youth life skills focuses on things such as building a resume and job interview skills, among other topics.
Robinson says the number of homeless youth in that 17-20 age range has risen, and puts the great need into perspective.
"I would say probably over 100 applications just in the last year and a half to two years for that age group," Robinson says. "And obviously there's no way we could have taken all of them in, we want to, we find we want to adopt them when they come in, but we can only help so many and so this new project, this new building, is going to allow us to do that."
You can find more information about the campaign HERE.