Monterey, Ca, March 23, 2022 – Community Human Services (CHS) is excited to announce that the Yellow Brick Road in Carmel recently awarded a grant of $5,000 to support our work on the Monterey Peninsula serving homeless youth. This funding will help counselors conduct street outreach daily offering survival aid, crisis counseling, case management, housing navigation, and referrals to community services including medical, mental, and substance abuse services.
The need for services for homeless youth in Monterey County is well documented. The January 2022 Monterey County Homeless Census identified 2,047 homeless individuals. Of that number, 389 were unaccompanied homeless children and transition-age youth (up to age 24), most of which were unsheltered. Unsheltered youth often wind up sleeping in vehicles, abandoned buildings or outdoors in tents, parks, or under overpasses and exposing them to harsh elements and potential harm.
In 2022, Yellow Brick Road provided a grant to Community Human Services for the Safe Place youth shelter where we served 77 youths and provided 4,582 units of service. A unit of service is the equivalent of an interaction between staff and youth, or the distribution of a snack bag, water bottle, basic survival aid item.
CHS has provided services to unaccompanied runaway and homeless youth for over 36 years. Safe Place, a counseling and case management program, opened in 1986. The Monterey Peninsula Street Outreach Program was added in 2003, and a 12-bed emergency shelter was added in 2016. Safe Passage, a 6-bed transitional supportive housing program, opened in Monterey in 2009. And the Salinas Valley Street Outreach Program opened in 2019.
Over its 30+ years, the Yellow Brick Road Benefit Shops have donated nearly $7.6 million to Monterey County non-profits. To help continue this philanthropy, they need more volunteers. Please call (831)626-8480 or www.yellowbrickroadbenefitshop.org.