Over 140 supporters attended a special reception sponsored by The Center at the Pacific Living Properties office downtown on April 28 to celebrate the grand opening of its Youth Supportive Housing Project.

The reception marked the end of nearly four years of community effort to address the issue of homelessness among gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning and HIV-positive youth (GLBTQ+) youth.

The housing facility, called the Sunburst Apartments, aims to help youth successfully transition out of homelessness. It’s among the first of its kind in the nation, providing supportive housing for young adults ages 18-24. The Youth Supportive Housing Project is a collaborative of The Center, Walden Family Services, YMCA Youth and Family Services, Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of San Diego and Children’s Hospital Chadwick Center.

“You all have played a meaningful role in helping to make the lives of homeless youth a lot brighter,” Richard Valdez, chair of The Center’s board of directors, said at last week’s reception. “I guess they were right – sometimes it takes a village. And in this instance, sometimes it takes a city.”

The San Diego City Council voted in July to approve final financing for the 23-unit transitional housing facility designed to stabilize GLBTQ+ youth, which is located at 1640 Broadway in downtown’s East Village.

In 2002, Heather Berberet, then director of mental health at Walden Family Services, the Reverend Tony Freeman of the MCC, Councilmember Toni Atkins, former Center board member Jennifer LeSar and The Center’s chief executive officer, Delores Jacobs, began to discuss the prevalent issue of homelessness among GLBT youth and form a collaborative with other agencies that specialize in youth homelessness. Of all homeless youth in San Diego County, 30 percent are believed to be GLBT.

Jacobs thanked Freeman, Berberet, Atkins and LeSar for championing the Youth Supportive Housing Project from start to finish, and presented them with awards of recognition.

“Those four people drove this project not just with their capacity to drive all of us forward but with an even more important thing,” Jacobs said. “These four people are capable of holding on to hope for four years for all of us.”

Tyler, 24, had been homeless and on the streets since he was 12. He is one of the 13 residents currently placed at Sunburst Apartments. The Center’s goal is to have all 23 units occupied with youth by the end of June.

“Tyler’s story is about survival sex. It’s about the streets. It’s about drugs,” Jacobs said. “His mother gave him rock cocaine when he was 10, and a year ago Tyler almost died from the heart attack that methamphetamine caused.”

Jacobs said she was grateful for San Diego’s generosity and vision, which helped turn the project from a dream into reality. She said hope played a major role in the project coming to fruition.

“When we handed him the keys, Tyler cried and said, ‘I can’t believe there’s anyone out there who still cares about kids like me.’ These four people in this room care about kids like Tyler for their vision, for hanging on to hope, for nurturing that hope,” Jacobs said.

Atkins said many GLBTQ youth are displaced and are not as fortunate as others. “They don’t have a safe place to go and family to support them,” she said. “These young adults are in crisis and they need your help. That’s what this project is all about: giving an LGBT kid, who hasn’t had many breaks in life, a chance at a bright future.”

Atkins said she will never forget when she toured the Hillcrest Youth Center and found out that many of the youth don’t have a place to live. She said it was at that moment she wanted to do something about it.

“It was excruciating, and I went home and couldn’t sleep for days,” she said. “I thought, ‘If I can’t do something to help with this problem, who in the world can?’ Fortunately, I had a team of people with commitment and heart and drive that helped get it started, and who are already working on it.”

LeSar said the first year of program support for residents in the Youth Supportive Housing Project will cost $200,000.

“We take for granted in our lives the life skills that we get, but you need to imagine that all of these kids grow up in environments where very few of them had an opportunity to develop life skills, where they may not have the role models to help them be successful,” LeSar said. “The programming at The Center gives them that opportunity to catch up and to have the lives that they deserve.”

The Center will provide supportive services for the project through its Hillcrest Youth Center. Patrick Loose, director of programs and operations for The Center, oversees services and staff at the Sunburst Apartments.

Supportive services available to tenants include: case management, professional mental health and counseling services, employment and education development, basic financial education, independent living skills, health/STD education, and drug and alcohol treatment. Loose said primary health and dental care is available through referral, although The Center is working to bring some primary medical services onsite.

He also said residents establish goals related to improving their ability to achieve independent living and then The Center program staff members work with them to create objectives that will help achieve those goals. As the residents complete objectives, incentives such as grocery gift cards and bus passes are offered as rewards. Loose said other incentives could include school supplies or clothes for interviewing and work.

At the reception, The Center members Richard Jones and Alan Brimble made a donation of $25,000 to help with the Youth Supportive Housing Project’s supportive services.

Organizations that received collaborator awards were: the MCC, the Centre City Development Corporation, Children’s Hospital Chadwick Center, the San Diego Housing Commission, the County of San Diego Department of Housing and Community Development, the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF). Individuals that received collaborator awards were: Cesar Portillo, Laura Mustari and Ken Tyner of the YWCA; Mindy Watrous, Jan Stankus-Nakana and Al Killen-Harvey of Children’s Hospital; Pat Getzel and former Councilmember Michael Zucchet.