Housing arrangements. Job searches. Financial stress. Nobody is more stressed than a 19-to-22-year old who thinks they’re running out of time.
That’s often the case of young adults who receive help from the Children’s Home of Stockton, a nonprofit organization located on North Pilgrim Street. The Children’s Home of Stockton helps by reaching out to children and young adults on the streets or who are at risk becoming homeless.
There are many causes of homelessness for young adults, including family breakdowns, crisis, violence, and withdrawal from care. The Children’s Home of Stockton has reached out to kids and teenagers in need, providing hospitality and a room to stay, with the belief that in time they’ll be able to provide for themselves, learning from the support they’ve gained.
Maritza Alvarez, Housing Navigator at the Children’s Home of Stockton, had experience in working at women’s shelters and helped with domestic violence shelters. Helping young adults transition from poverty is a career change for her.
“A lot of factors play a role into why they end up at the children’s home, most of it being that they’re not having a support system as strong as they would like to with [their] family, and encouraging them to — or putting them to have to take those hard challenges or ultimately decision making of having to rely on a shelter to go to,” Alvarez said.
Families struggling seek out the opportunities for their children while being aware of their housing issues.
“They’re giving themselves an opportunity to say ‘hey, I know we’re struggling as a family unit, I will remove myself at this point, try to find something more stable.’ Another thing is that they might be facing true homelessness as a family component or individually but homelessness is the number one reason why they end up at the Children’s Home.”
There is no set path when it comes to helping the children they serve, Alvarez said.
“Most of it is very common, like forms of documentation and ways to navigate the options. There’s no routine, it’s really every person is different, every situation and circumstances are different, so navigating through the different challenges or goals that they have when looking for housing or preparing them for that is very unique and [there’s] no days the same, which is great too because you have an opportunity to wake up and feel refreshed and think ‘what is today gonna bring?,’” Alvarez said.
There are many aspects to acknowledge in order to help a young adult move into the home. Alvarez serves in a role to coach and provide assistance.
“My role is to be a housing navigator but at the same time, helping and being reliable with our coaches and being an assistance to them, if needed to be and their day to day routine skill set building, I take it upon myself to be very much available, a variety day to day,” she said.
For the Children’s Home of Stockton, the idea is to give young people the best chance for shelter by providing a process to be independent with the common skills they leave with.
“A lot of the normal skill sets, the life skills is one of the major ones that I say that I’ve seen that they leave with because a lot of the times where their experience has led where they don’t have that opportunity, even the regular interaction with family members where they’ll be educating them, teaching them those skill sets,” said Alvarez.
The young adults in the program often face obstacles including mental health challenges and past traumas.
“A lot of the times when they’re facing trauma and they’re not fully prepared; they’re not healed. They seem to be more at a standstill with their thinking and they’re in a freeze mood. So when you’re trying to navigate those options and try to give them some guidance, mentally prepare them for what’s to come,” said Alvarez.
Guidance is what helps the youth with facing problems in healing.
“They feel like they might not deserve it, there’s a lot of emotions behind it. A lot of challenges is that they’re not fully prepared to take those bigger steps or even the small steps and when they need more time and your trying to guide them, you ultimately need them to initiate the whole process and be the part-taking to do it because you can’t do it all for them, you have to guide them into it,” said Alvarez.
