January/February 2005 Featured Stories
New Avenues For Youth
Serving the homeless young of Portland

by Phil Jefferson

Drugs, mental health problems, lack of educational opportunities - these are the key problems faced by the homeless young of Portland and by those trying to help. All are factors that contribute to a cycle of hopelessness that returns too many to the streets. In the latter part of the nineties, a talented and committed group of Portland organizations and homeless advocates decided to face those problems head on with a best practices program that would get kids off the street, out of danger and keep them off.

Of these groups, New Avenues for Youth is unique in its integration of an outcome based program that claims an eighty-seven percent success rate, as they are tracked a year later, for those who complete the program. All its programs are aimed at breaking down the negative stereotypes that the public has of young people living on the streets. In late 1998 the program opened its doors with a twenty-four-bed full time transitional facility that incorporates a team of highly qualified case managers and "drop-in" classroom teaching to open the doors to a high school diploma. Applicants for the program may be former or current foster care recipients, runaways or actually homeless four to six months with no address.

The director of the program, Ken Cowdery, counts on the resiliency of these young people. He is convinced that despite the traumas of sexual abuse and family violence, homeless kids will respond to the right kind of adult guidance. Their response to New Avenues for Youth and its success rate over the past six years has borne out that conviction.

New Avenues for Youth is for those kids who are serious about changing; it is not just a cool place to hang out for a while. Even if the kids have a high school diploma, they can still receive additional school training and many students are in both the school program and a jobtraining program concurrently. Eleven months is the average stay for participants in the New Avenues for Youth program - ample time to provide the counseling and skills that will be needed to forge a new life.

Kids are often very distrustful of adults. Sometimes it just takes something like the Internet access, the recording studio or art activities to turn a kid who is dropping in two or three times a week from part-time student to a full-time resident student. Some of them have been living on the streets in various cities along the I-5 corridor for as long as five years. For them the opportunity to settle down, to live and study in a secure place is a welcome relief from being on the road.

The dedication of the students as they enter the program builds teamwork and success. Each week they are obligated to help prepare a group meal, and in order to be able to live in the upstairs facility they must be in either the job training program or the school. When the kids come to live at the facility, their shared past builds a camaraderie among them immediately and they respect the facility and the staff.

New Avenues has taken a new direction in the past year with their partnership with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Ben and Jerry's has been granting scoop shop franchises since about 1987. In their philanthropic activities, their company policy is to partner only with programs that deliver meaningful results. Also, they have been actively supporting programs that target at risk and homeless youth.

The goal of the current partnership with New Avenues is to run a job training program at the Ben and Jerry's Portland franchise and to use the profits from the franchise to fund the job training program. New Avenues for Youth is the sixteenth franchise of its kind in America to operate in this way. It is a job-creating, financially self-sustainable enterprise designed to train homeless youth for today's job market.

Emily Ryan was one of the first fourteen (out of fifty) applicants accepted to the Ben and Jerry's job training program. She rose to the top of the class, and once the store was open quickly became a shift leader. This experience gained at the ice cream shop now qualifies her to be employed in retail management. Emily won the Spirit of Portland Award given by the City's Office of Neighborhood Involvement in late 2004. She was nominated by Ken Cowdery, who cited her maturity, perseverance and leadership-qualities. Emily serves as an example to a lot of other kids who feel that perhaps they can't make it. Though many of New Avenues for Youth's efforts go unnoticed by the community at large, the positive impact of their work in Portland is significant and much needed.

Contact New Avenues for Youth at 1220 SW Columbia, Portland, Oregon 97201; phone: 503-224-4339 ; E-mail dholley@newavenues.org; www.newavenues.org. If you wish to volunteer, contact Angela Pratt at (503-224-4339 ext. 310 If you are under 21 and need immediate assistance, call the Youth Hotline: 1-800-995-7936