Program for homeless youth in downtown St. John's needs new home

ASt. John's service that has been providing drop-in and outreach support for at-risk and homeless youth for more than a decade is looking for a new space.

If we weren't fully operational, it would really impact people who rely on that service on a weekly basis.- AngelaCrockwell

Street Reach, which is run by the Thrive Community Network, has been operating downtown since 2005, and for the last six years has run itsdrop-in centre at 68 Queen's Rd.

Street Reach offers food, warm clothing, needle exchange, crisis intervention and many more services to homeless and at-risk youth.

Specific needs

Now, the buildingis up for sale, and Thrive has been told it has until the end of September to find a new location for Street Reach, which sees more than 600 unique individuals come through its doors every year.

"We're looking for [a] really good, cheap spacein downtown St. John's," said Thrive executive director Angela Crockwell.

Crockwell saidgiven the large volume of people Street Reach handles, as well as the types of services it provides Thrive has specific criteria it needs to meet for a new space. That includes being in the downtown core, being able to comfortably hold 50 people at a time, have a kitchen where staff and volunteers can cook mealsand, most important,be affordable.

With a limited budgetshe recognizes the group may have difficulty meeting all those requirements, but one option it's open to is sharing space with another group.

"We don't necessarily need our own dedicated space. That would be ideal, but we are certainly open to co-locating with people," she said.

"We're not operating the drop-in centre 30 or40 hours a week, so we only need it at specific times throughout the week."

Crockwell said they would prefer not to be located onDuckworthStreet or Water Street,so they won't disruptbusinesses who might not like seeing dozens of youths coming and going from Thrive's drop-in centre.

She said it's crucial that a new location is found in the next few weeks, so they have time to move.But if nothing is finalized, the group will still continue to send staff out to help youth living on the streets of downtown St. John's.

"We will still be street level, and people will still be out on the streets with backpacks," she said.