A moment in the life of Susan our Executive Director

"I got a call at 11 p.m. last week from one of our students who asked if I could find some blankets for him. He is 20 years old and recently homeless – he said he had a bad fight with a sister and his mother had to “put him out” (sounds like what you do to a dog for a few hours, not a young man…but that is the terminology he used). When I asked how many he needed he said 8. I tried to go back to sleep but had to wonder why 8 young adults needed blankets to get trough the night.

At Curt’s Café we teach at-risk young adults aged 15 to 24 life and job skills and then place them in jobs and continue to mentor them. This summer we had 9 students and 6 were homeless. These were all young men, with no place to lay their heads, with little education, no jobs and no money. We are only able to provide two meals a day for them and 8 hours of training. But they have to survive the other 16 hours on the streets, and our gangs are clearly the ones opening their doors to them and keeping them safe and warm.

In Evanston we have adult homeless shelters and a few programs for homeless young adults, but the shelters specifically for young adults have long waiting lists. So what do they do at night when it's 32 degrees outside? Where do they go if they can’t afford a bus or train pass to run the rails all night and stay warm?

The volunteers at the Café found the student eight blankets within an hour and this morning at 6:30 a.m. I received a text from our student saying, “Thanks for everything."

8 blankets, that's easy. But they need so much more!"