To ease reentry, help the hosts who offer their couches
Dr Stacey Ault, assistant professor of social work at Sacramento State University, offers her perspective as a scholar working with CloseKnit to analyze our interviews with caring adult hosts–as well as a black mama who has herself hosted many young people grappling with housing instability. Read her September 2019 opinion piece in Youth Today!
The unmet need for youth facing homelessness?
Old-fashioned turkey togetherness
Drawing on Chapin Hall’s recently released research brief which establishes that youth face homelessness at the same rates in rural and urban areas, as well as CloseKnit’s interviews with couch-surfing youth and their adult hosts, our director’s 2018 Thanksgiving op-ed in the Twin Cities Star-Tribune makes the case for the often unmet relational needs of youth facing homelessness.
Listen up! Minnesota Host Home Network is on the air
We welcomed in 2018 with a January 8 appearance on the KFAI public affairs show Truth to Tell. Featuring CloseKnit director Jacqueline White; Cindy Ley, executive director of Open Doors for Youth, a drop-in resource for youth experiencing homelessness in Elk River; and Amy Perez, who participated in the Twin Cities GLBT Host Home Program as a youth. Now archived: Take a listen!
Read all about it! Making the case for supporting “informal host homes”
We’ve been listening to youth who are staying with caring adults they already know in what we’re calling “informal host homes” and lifting up their voices. Read the commentary by our director, Jacqueline White, in the Nov 2017 Twin Cities Star Tribune:
‘Hidden’ network of caring adults can be key to stopping youth homelessness