By Laura Fitzgerald

For more than 40 years, The Harbor and its parent organization, Comprehensive Youth Services, Inc., has provided homeless youth a safe haven through transitional housing, assess to resources, and skills training.

The Community Foundation helped The Harbor further its mission by providing a more than $5,000 grant to improve its group home, Wings of the Harbor.

“Our program goal is to make youth homelessness rare, brief, and a one-time occurrence,” said Melissa Schilling, Comprehensive Youth Services Grant Administrator.

Located in Port Huron, Wings of the Harbor provides life skills courses, job training, educational help, mental and physical health services, crisis intervention, and computer support for up to five homeless individuals between the age of 18 and 21 for up to 18 months.

The grant will be used for the demolition of a dilapidated, unsafe garage on the corner of the property. For now, the space will be a grassy area for residents to enjoy and possibly plant a garden. The area also has a basketball court, picnic table and patio furniture for residents to relax, said Wings of the Harbor Program Manager Becca Kettlewell.

Eventually, the organization plans to add a recreational and office building on the property for residents to use computers and have a separate space for therapy sessions, Kettlewell said. The garage demolition clears space for the additional building.

How Homelessness Impacts Children

Homelessness is defined by the inability to provide a home of one’s own, Schilling said. Many families might not even realize they qualify as homeless because they live with relatives, friends or other families.

“It’s about choice,” Shilling said. “You can choose to live with grandma and grandpa to help with elderly parents. But if its you can’t afford to live somewhere else, or you have nowhere else to go, you’re taking the choice out of it, and that makes you homeless.”

Youth might experience homelessness – either by themselves or with parents or family members – because they are experiencing mental health challenges, they are aging out of foster care, they ran away from an unsafe home situation, or another emergency shelter doesn’t have room for an entire family, Schilling said.

The Harbor serves St. Clair, Sanilac, and Huron counties. In these three counties, more than 640 youth were identified as homeless by county public schools last school year, according to the Center for Educational Performance and Information.

“You don’t think that homelessness is a big problem for children, but it is,” Shilling said. “There are a lot of youth that are doubled up, living together with other family members, or they’re couch surfing.”

And rural communities pose unique challenges for homeless youth, including lack of transportation, housing and job opportunities, Schilling said.

She said homelessness can have an immense impact on a child’s social, emotional, and mental health.

“In the moment, it is very traumatizing,” Schilling said. “When working with youth, we use harm reduction. We promote positive youth development. We use trauma-informed care because they’re coming from a traumatic situation.”

More About the Harbor’s History

Originally founded in 1978 to house 10 runaway and homeless youth, The Harbor has grown to serve an average of 130 youth per year between the ages of 9 and 21.

In 2004, Comprehensive Youth Services and The Harbor received a federal grant to operate a transitional living program for homeless youth. The Foundation’s Youth Advisory Council, the Acheson Foundation, and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority provided matching funds to purchase The Wings of the Harbor home in Port Huron.

The Community Foundation owned the home for 14 years before gifting the property to The Harbor in 2014.

The Harbor added a Street Outreach program in 2007, which meets with runaway, homeless, and street youth aged 9 to 20. Volunteers visit youth venues, schools, and parks to provide food, hygiene items, clothing, transportation, and assistance with housing and family reunification.

To learn more about the Foundation’s work, view a list of funds, or make a donation, visit the Community Foundation’s giving center.