Who: Youth ages 18, 19, 20, and 21 From Anywhere

What: Emergency 30-day shelter

Where: 1471 Como Ave. W, St. Paul, MN

Enter through the back door off of the parking lot.

How: Self-referral call 651-646-2601 at 6pm to find out about openings.

What to know before you go:

Low-Barrier access, however, there will be a background check upon entry.  If you have a felony charge for sexual assault, physical assault, or arson access may be denied.

To learn more about the Shelter Program go to:-

www.thesalarmy.org/bbh

very interesting shift today. we met a young man that is staying in adult shelter and connected him to a drop in center and a case manager. he did a great job verbalizing his dislikes of the situation he is in and talked about his goals and where he would like to be soon. 

recently we have encountered some snags in the “creative outreach” that we have been doing. we are no longer aloud to post signs on light post which sucks because it has been working as far as calls go but then a cop told us that chalking on public sidewalks required a permit. this was very upsetting because this has been a very effective way to have outreach out there even when outreach workers aren’t. after some phone calls to the city and some good advice from an artist in residence we talked to some city counsel members and they did some research and told us we can continue to chalk. AWESOME!!!

later in the shift we had to call 911 because someone lit a dumpster on fire. the fire department came and put it out before it could get to out of control, and no one was hurt.

we ran into a language  barrier today. we were looking for camps and found a young persons id, social security card, his citizen ship card and other  important documents. most of them had been cut or damaged in some way but the  address on the id was near by  so we drove to the apartment building. the guy happened to be outside and we gave him his stuff but were not able to communicate how we found it because he doesn’t speak english, it seems to me that his wallet was stolen and discarded but we couldn’t ask about police reports of if there was anything else we could do.

we ended our shift back at one of the adult shelters and  had good chats  with some of the youth staying there. one just got housing and is moving in tomorrow!!! AWESOME!!!

another great day for an outreach worker to be outside doing outreach, and the weekend should be even better. we met a ton of youth new and familiar faces, downtown and in east st paul. our total was 34 contacts but we got a couple of phone calls and had a number of youth run up and say hi and get condoms and resources from us. one kid who looked familiar said i met him a while back and he was able to connect to resources and has a good job and housing now. i told him i didn’t quite remember who he was but that didn’t seem to matter because of the positive experience he had the first time he worker with an outreach worker.

one open bed tonight 3/10/12 at the safe house shelter, call at six. 651 644 3446

I have been a case manager for youth for many years. Today was one of those days that when you think you have heard and seen it all this happens. A sweet and respectful youth in a homeless shelter reveals what the streets of Minneapolis have done to him. He has wondered the streets walking, and sleeping outside for weeks. His feet so badly frostbitten that he may lose them. He is only 18 and may have to loose his feet, both of them. This was devastating for me to see first hand, and can’t imagine how he feel everyday. Today was a somber reminder of the hard work that we all do every day to help make more space for the homeless youth everywhere.

we had a pretty good shift last night, it was a little chilly but we still found around 30 young people to talk to.

the highlight was a young lady that i have known for three years who has had many ups and downs, lately is seems mostly downs, told us she got a job!!! and so did her boyfriend!!! they are expecting a baby and both staying in adult shelter and the way way things are going now they should bee able to afford a place in no time!!!