Jerman first went to the Star House in the summer of 2016 at the age of 20. At that time, due to a lack of support from loved ones and himself, he was homeless and unemployed, and living between a tent and a shelter. Jerman gained employment through the Godman Guild and began making steps […]
When Sara first came to Focus Learning Academy in 2015, she had one credit under her belt. She has faced a tremendous amount of adversity throughout her life and she has risen above it all to become a successful student as well as a positive individual. Sara battled abuse, drugs, and a life of crime. […]
Nikia suffered a personal tragedy that would bring most of us to our knees. Two years ago, her mother was murdered in front of her. During the days following her mother’s death, Nikia looked to Walnut Ridge High School for support. She questioned how normalcy would ever return to her life. Slowly she began to […]
Kareena left an abusive and violent relationship with the father of her daughter and came to Huck House unsure of what she wanted in life. She was unsure how to be on her own. Over the past year, she has worked tremendously hard on making a better life for herself and her child. She has […]
Micheal is an amazing young man. Mike is being raised by his father and has had many struggles with stable housing. Mike is constantly faced with the challenges of being a young black male in the inner city. When Mike entered Walnut Ridge High School as a freshman, he was unsuccessful academically and was removed […]
Cecil entered Huck House’s Transitional Living Program (TLP) after staying with various family members due to unstable housing. He was a senior in high school but his doubt, depression, anxiety and lack of stable housing made it difficult to focus on school. During his time in TLP, Cecil worked hard to improve himself.
Sharon was removed from her home at a very young age due to physical abuse and spent most of her childhood bouncing between various family members’ homes. Sharon always felt like no one wanted her and did not think there was a point to trying to make any situation work. Feeling unwanted made Sharon angry […]
The article below, from Lake News Online, focuses on youth homelessness in Missouri, but contains national statistics worth sharing. To read the full article go to http://www.lakenewsonline.com/news/20170329/how-we-got-here-why-our-youth-wind-up-homeless How We Got Here: Why our youth wind up ‘homeless’ By Amy Wilson, Natalie Sanders, Cody Mroczka, Corbin Kottmann and Dan Field / awilson@westsidestar.net “Juveniles are just 24 […]
We have too many kids falling through cracks that we’ve created. Youth fall fast and hard into poverty on their 18th birthday. Just look at the number of transition age youth in the adult homeless shelter if you want evidence that we are not doing as well as we think. Last year almost 1,000 people […]