Working With Youth to Bring Families Closer
Webster House Youth Services is a center for youth in crisis. Our staff is available as a resource for youth experiencing conflict in their lives and will support the entire family through the healing process.
ABOUT ART VAN FURNITURE
Art Van Furniture is Michigan's largest furniture retailer and America's largest independent furniture retailer, operating 34 stores in Michigan, and 5 freestanding PureSleep mattress stores in Canton, Rochester Hills, Troy, Brighton and Ann Arbor, Michigan, The company is family-owned and headquartered in Warren, Michigan. For more information, visit Art Van online.
The Couch Surfing Campaign to End Youth Homelessness is made possible by a grant from Art Van's Million Dollar Charity Challenge. In its third year, Art Van has awarded $1 million to local charities.
“The Art Van Million Dollar Charity Challenge benefits 50 remarkable and deserving organizations to help them continue their outstanding work and improve the lives of people across our state,” said Art Van Elslander, Chairman and Founder of Art Van Furniture.
Every Woman's Place/Webster House Youth Services was selected to participate through an application and voting process.
HOMELESSNESS DEFINED
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website, the term "homeless" or "homeless individual or homeless person" includes-
1. an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and
2. an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is
a. a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);
b. an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or
c. a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.
This definition excludes "couch surfers." There have been attempts to pass bills to include couch surfers as homeless, to no avail. The idea may seem trivial, but until we as a nation recognize teens who couch surf as homeless, we can't offer them the help they deserve.
What is Couch Surfing?
Couch Surfing can be defined as situations where runaway or homeless youth are living in unstable and/or temporary living arrangements such as the couches or spare bedrooms of friends, lovers or other family members. Youth become homeless for a variety of reasons ranging from aging out of foster care, abuse or neglect at home, parents moving away, to conflicts with their parents.
Couch surfing seems like a safe alternative to living on the street. If you can stay with friends, it may seem better than staying in a shelter. However,these teens are often forced to engage in activities that are not safe or healthy as a way to survive living out of the home. Some teens may engage in illegal activities such as prostitution, dealing drugs, or theft as a means to keep a place to stay, make money or just survive. Many of these teens have never engaged in these activities prior to becoming homeless.
The Couch Surfing Campaign to End Homelessness is designed to raise funds and awareness of homelessness and to show how individuals can become homeless as a result of family violence, running away, family dynamics, and much more.
The Campaign seeks to provide funding to both emergency shelters; homeless youth, and victims of domestic and sexual violence. Funds collected from the campaign will also be used to purchase food, toiletries, bed linens, and other basic necessities.
Most of us are willing to be supportive friends to teens; offering a them a place to stay for long periods of time can be helpful, but offering additional support from Webster House Youth Services can lead to a better life for them and their family. While the goal is to reunify families, Webster House Youth Services works to ensure the teen has a safe and supportive home to return to.
Couch Surfing is a short-term solution to a larger issue. Webster House is here to help teens in all aspects of their life that will lead to their self-sufficiency and independence. We take our slogan seriously, "Working with Youth to Make Families Stronger" truly is the work we do. For help, please call 231-759-7909.
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The mission of Every Woman's Place/Webster House Youth Services is to improve and enhance the lives of women, youth, and families in crisis in our community by providing and advocating for services which lead to their safety, their emotional and economic self-sufficiency, their productivity, and their ability to participate fully in our society.
Now you can make donations online and help support our efforts to continue providing the community with the services it so desperately needs.
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