Kingston Youth Shelter looks to help with renovation costs

Article content

KINGSTON — Staff and organizers at the Kingston Youth Shelter are asking the public for help raising the last portion of their $1.5 million fundraising target.

Article content

The shelter bought a new location on Nelson Street a year ago and has spent about $300,000 renovating it to provide overnight accommodation for up to 24 people aged 16 to 24.

Article content

Currently, the shelter can accommodate about 12 people, but an additional renovation will provide room for up to 24 people.

The work that is left to do includes the installation of a couple of windows and the renovation of a former space into an office space. The agency is seeking both financial help and in-kind contributions.

“We’re kind of just out of money to continue on with this,” explained Anne Brown, a member of the shelter’s board of directors. “The building itself costs $1 million. There were all kinds of studies and reports and everything we needed to provide for rezoning.

Article content

“When we took on the building, it was a dance studio, so it had three toilets, three sinks, a sink for a kitchen, a fridge and that was it,” Brown added. “So we’ve renovated to put in a fully accessible washroom with the roll in shower. Then we have a gender neutral washroom with toilet stalls and sinks and private shower stalls. We didn’t have any laundry facility when we took on the building so now we have stacking washers and dryers for the youth to wash their stuff and for us to wash the bedding.”

Brown and the staff of the shelter stressed that it is the only agency in the city that provides housing exclusively for youth and part of its goal is to help young people get off the street before homelessness becomes chronic and leads to other issues.

Article content

“It may start off as homelessness, but then when you’re in the system and in the culture for a long time unfortunately mental health comes in,” said Jay Nowak, the shelter’s executive director. “Then they get attached to individuals who may be using drugs and then they start experiencing and experimenting and it kind of just goes down from there. We want to catch them right at the beginning, as quickly as possible, so that we can support them so that they don’t have to enter the adult system.”

“If we can stop that interaction where it’s chronic homelessness, we can break the cycle and help them become housed and contributing members of society,” said Brown. “The longer they stay in homelessness, the harder it is to get them out of homelessness.”

About 20 per cent of Kingston’s homeless are considered youth and about 200 people seek help from the Kingston Youth Shelter each year.

Article content