Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

Closed captioning is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport.

More information available at bemidjiairport.org Welcome to Lakeland Currents, I'm your host Todd Haugen.

On this edition of Lakeland Currents we'll talk about the YESS program of Park Rapids.

That's Youth Emergency Shelter and Supports, and we have the Executive Director with us, her name is Kori Nelson and also the Board Chair Ben Erie here as well.

Welcome to Lakeland Currents you two.

Thank you.

YESS is the acronym that is known by, what is the YESS project all about.

So our mission is to help youth in Hubbard County communities by providing a safe and supportive environment who are in crisis or in need of emergency shelter.

So YESS came about because we wanted an acronym that would be catchy for the teenagers and something easy to remember because Youth Emergency Shelter and Supports is a mouth full.

So we got the acronym and really where we're at right now in the development phase of things is bringing awareness to youth homelessness or at risk of homelessness and what that looks like in our communities, so that's really what YESS is about right now.

Was there a program like this before YESS came into existence?

No.

Nope so the closest our youth would be going to Evergreen Youth and Family Services here in Bemidji, otherwise they'll be going further outside of our county so they would be going either to Moorhead, St Cloud , Duluth or to the Metro.

And how long has YESS been in existence?

So we were established April 5th of 2023, so we're going to be coming up on our two-year anniversary here shortly which has gone really fast.

Exciting.

It is exciting.

I'm sure there's lots to do I mean what are you providing so far what kinds of services?

So we are doing outreach to the community.

We started off with doing 100 hygiene kits and those were spread across to Park Rapids, Nevis and Laporte schools and then we established a what we're calling a mobile closet and that's in Laporte School.

So they have access to clothing, food, and hygiene items there at school they can just go and grab, there's nothing that they have to do, there's nobody they have to talk to to go and grab those items.

And then and now we're at this really cool phase where we have opened a drop-in center, so kind of unique hours because I'm still working full-time, so it's after school 3:00 to 8:00 p.m. and then Saturdays 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

So they can come in, they can get warm meals, they have access to a clothing pantry, food pantry, hygiene pantry.

They can come in and just hang out and weirdly enough the youth like to come and sit with us adults and just have conversations so it's really cool.

Nice.

So you work full-time and yet you still have time to do this.

Yes.

Wow.

I've always been a multi-job activity project person so this is really not anything new for me anyways.

I got done with my masters and then YESS was already established and I just jumped right into that.

Thankfully I have a cool enough boss that allows me to do those things so.

Ben you are the chair of the board.

Yes correct.

This is a board that controls policy decisions for YESS.

Yeah so as a nonprofit Minnesota we have to have a board of directors.

I became chair approximately a year ago.

You know the thing that really made me interested in YESS in general was how hidden homeless youth is so when we think of homelessness I think there is this projection of people living on the streets or kind of the stereotypical what we see in the news or the newspaper.

Where, especially in the rural communities, what we're seeing a lot when it comes to homeless youth, is the kids that are doubled up, the kids that have really insecure housing, living with an auntie or living with a non-family member.

We're seeing a lot of concerns with unstable family dynamics that we have to that the children are dealing with and so with that what we're basically finding is that there are times where we're getting really poor data.

So from a metric standpoint it's really hard to track some of these kiddos.

At the same time we really don't have a lot of local policies or local resources that are going to be a safe place for these children and so that's really what motivated me to become part of YESS and sit on the board and volunteer as well at the drop-in center because it's a safe place where these kids without shame can get a change of clothes or can get a hot meal or just, you know, can be surrounded by stable adults for example.

Ben the other thing that people might as they think about kids living in the scenario that you described they may think of a whole family moving place to place all together, you know, maybe a couple of kids and a couple of adults but I kind of doubt that it happens that way very often.

Yeah I mean and what we normally find is when a family has unstable housing it really breaks down to the parents, you know, have some options if it's, you know, staying in a place not meant for housing, their car or certain shelters that are really built around single adults, and what happens is those children either get left to a different caregiver, get left from kind of left to an ad hoc caregiver, so again an aunt, a family friend, or what we're finding is that some of those kids are just having to figure out on their own, they're having to, you know, there's a higher likelihood of homelessness with adults that struggle with mental health or substance use or chronic illness and so in a lot of cases the parents are trying to take care of their own needs and that kid, you know, in many cases no fault of the parents is really having to fend for themselves and so they're having to double up with friends or they're having to kind of figure out on a day to day and so what YESS is really built to do right now is to provide that, you know, that stable place after school and eventually transition into having both short-term and long-term housing options for those youth that we can provide stability.

So whenever we talk about homelessness in this country there's still the concern about the stigma associated with it and as you two folks you know describe to others in your community what you do and how this project what its goals are it seems that people often want to ask well how did these people become homeless.

You know I don't know if you've heard that yet or not but everybody's looking for an explanation and I think usually they expect a certain type of explanation.

What's your experience been with that?

Well I think it's really multifaceted.

I think right now, you know, we have an affordable housing crisis.

Navigating, you know, housing and housing programs is significantly complicated.

My background, I've spent 21 years in Social Services, I joke with our staff that I can't navigate it with a master's degree so how are we expecting someone that may be struggling with depression or struggling with substance use or mobility issues to make every appointment to follow through with everything.

And then on top of that we have these vulnerable children that are basically just along for the ride and I don't think there is necessarily one answer why an individual or why a family becomes homeless, but what we also see is then we see all these precipitating events.

So once you become homeless there can be a negative effect on your credit, there can be a negative effect on your rental history which then is kind of a black mark for you, for the next you know anywhere between a year to five years, which really further prevents that family or those individuals to become housed again.

And again these children are just along for the ride.

The other thing that I hear quite a bit from the community is that we don't have this problem and the barrier is it's very hidden, like I talked about previously, where so many of these children are doubled up with family or are doubled up with friends or and we've had this situation where someone was living in a car or they're, you know, they're living, they're going to school in Park Rapids but living 40 miles away and because that's the only family they have, and so there are all these logistical barriers in rural Minnesota.

The other thing we're seeing, and we've talked to some of our local politicians about this, is given where Park Rapids is located between a couple reservations and being a hub in a rural community that we're dealing with a lot of the problems of a rural city without any of the resources to this point.

Like in Bemidji we have Evergreen, we have some places, in Moorhead, we have a couple of shelters.

In Park Rapids we're seeing a group of individuals, a group of youth that are struggling with housing security but YESS is really the first comprehensive program, other than Mahube-Otwa, they do some youth case management, to really address this problem and really look at it beyond Park Rapids but how do we effectively serve Hubbard County and our region.

And Park Rapids is a fairly good-sized community, really, I mean it's not surprising that there would be some of this sort of situation in Park Rapids is that what you hear, too, Kori?

I mean what kind of input have you been getting.

So it's probably been about over a year now since I've talked to the county commissioners and their first question was where is it and I said you're not going to see it, you're going to see the doubling up, you're going to see the vehicles or you're going to see them staying at friends houses.

So you're going to see the you're not going to see them like you would.

Actually I did two focus groups in the Park Rapids ALC and the first question I asked I said what is homelessness and they all said living in a tent on the side of the street and these were 15 to 19 year olds and I was like okay let's back up, let's talk about the couch hopping, the doubling up, the parents not being on a lease, having to hop from place to place, living with family members and such and then I said well, so okay, who knows someone, if not yourself, that would be identified as homeless or at risk for homelessness and all of them raised their hand, and this was between the two focus groups, twenty- two kids.

So they all know someone or otherwise they're identifying themselves so I'm hearing that.

I am hearing a lot of it is just we don't see it, it's not here.

So we're battling a lot against that, sadly, it's been kind of the main conversation.

You would have to expect though that any town that was going to bring a new project like this into you there were people that were going to bring this forward that most I mean a lot of towns they'd say the same thing wouldn't they I mean well, I don't think we really have that here.

Correct, yeah, and I mean, you know, I'm kind of the go-to person for YESS and I've been kind of pushing back at a lot of people just because Hubbard County does have some very poor data as far as what homelessness looks like.

Our surrounding counties have great data.

Frazee, Detroit Lakes, Wadena, Bemidji, Walker they have great data as far as their homeless students whether it's through McKinney-Vento or it's through their community actions.

Hubbard County does not have great data and I think it's a lot of a lack of education, just the lack of knowledge of knowing what youth homelessness looks like.

So when we talked earlier we opened the show and you told us, you know, about yourself a little bit is there, I mean you're obviously very dedicated to this task working full-time and then taking on the executive director of this project, what brings you to this type of work?

So I started kind of off I did in I guess social services realm I started off doing skills with kids and this was from first grade up all the way up to seniors in high school.

So I worked in the schools with kids doing mental health and I navigated away from the schools and I went into domestic and sexual violence where I spent many, many years up until 2022-23 and so left an organization after some toxic work environment and I was finishing my master's and I just figured out I needed to do something with my life so I started a nonprofit.

So it's been kind of my baby and once I go all in on something I'm all in so they're not getting rid of me anytime soon.

Tell me more about the drop-in center as it stands, how does that work and I think you mentioned the hours earlier but where is it and how does it work?

Yep so it's 600 Park Avenue North in Park Rapids.

If you're a Park Rapids native it is the Old Red Lantern building.

If you're not a Park Rapids native Polish Head to Toe Salon, Northern Lights Dance Academy is in there.

So we're on the very front end of the building, it's a little 500 square feet space right now and so we got in there thankfully at the nick of time because the landlord had taken down the for rent and they were going to extend the salon and I reached out and I was like hey this is what I can afford can we make this work and they were like yes we can make this work so got into that space.

Hours 3:00 to 8:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and really it is just word of mouth right now, not significant support from the schools as far as being able to get to their students and let them know we're there so right now it's word of mouth.

So we opened on November 18th at the drop-in, full-time, or for our hours anyways and from November 18th through December 31st we served 11 youth.

It was 436 services and 191 volunteer hours, saving the organization a little over $2,000.

Just being volunteer ran right now.

So I am not paid through YESS right now, working on that, and so yeah that's kind of what the drop-in looks right now, got some cool stuff in the works.

So how do you pay this rent that you referred to, I mean that's not coming out of your pocket I hope.

No, nope it's not.

We are donations and grant funded.

So a lot of the donations are paying the rent for us right now.

We do have the Minnesota Power Foundation Grant that was specifically requested for rent and insurance so that's covering us for a little while here.

Otherwise yeah we're running off grants for programming.

The Otto Bremer Foundation, United Way Bemidji Area, Minnesota Power Foundation, the Park Rapids Area Community Fund.

I know I'm missing some on that list but a lot of community donations.

Actually we're on track right now to within probably the next month and a half to outdo our donations what we did last year so.

Terrific.

What age kids can come to the drop-in center?

13 to 24 for the drop-in center.

Okay.

So the other thing is I think that there's this misconception when we talk about youth homelessness that once you turn 18 it's a good luck and Godspeed situation where what we're also seeing is are a number of individuals that are transitioning out of foster care, that are transitioning, you know, out of other, you know, institutions for example, where they don't have a lot of those life skills from 18 to 24 and because of how both the Federal Homeless Youth Act is written is technically a homeless youth is up to 24 years old and so there are individuals that are kind of technically adults but are really lacking some of those skills.

One of our goals longterm is with the drop-in center is to move to some skill-based stuff are to really help a lot of these youth that are struggling with some of their kind of basic needs or some of the ADLs that they never learned to this point, to really help them along.

The example I've given to our board before is my freshman year in college I asked why we had an RA and he laughed at me and said you guys would burn the place down and he was not wrong, none of us had any skills but yet we are expecting these youth that are coming from chaotic environments that are, you know, have had insecure housing for years to basically transition into an apartment independently without any skill building and so that's one of the goals too is to, you know, how do we set up these kids to kind of change their trajectory.

It's both a very sad stat but it's a really honest stat is if you are homeless as a youth you are 70 times more likely to be homeless as an adult and so if we can, you know, through our drop-in center if we can provide that stability, if we can provide those basic needs and then, you know, we're kind of doing it ad hoc right now with just talking with adults and learning some skill sets but eventually transition to where we can teach some of those skills that we all have to have in adulthood that we all pick up, you know, from our parents or if we go to college our RA to really help those youth transition into adulthood in a way that is sustainable and is a way that can really pivot their trajectory in life.

The kids that come to the drop-in center now or your future shelter when hopefully that happens, do they have to answer questions or fill out a form or document that they're homeless or anything like that?

So when they come in it's just a basic questionnaire, your basic demographics, their age, their gender, you know are they have they experienced domestic or sexual violence, are they involved with the criminal justice system, to try to grasp an idea.

We do ask about suicidal ideations so just that way if they're coming in for the first time and they're saying they're having active thoughts of suicide that we can get them the resources that they deserve and call in the resources that they deserve in our community that we have available so.

And if they're under 18 how do you handle the question of you know do their parents know where they are?

You know we haven't run into that quite yet.

It is actually a lot of step-parents or grandparents bringing the youth in.

We do have a set of parents that their kids do come after school every day and so I don't think it's really an issue yet.

For one of the youth I was like you know what invite your mom to come in and see what this is about and Mom came in and was like okay mom was all right with it.

So as far as dealing with the parents if they're there after school if their parents don't know and their parents come looking for them we try to do a little bit of that skill building and that communication building with parents as far as to where they're at and why they're here and maybe why they like being here so.

And are kids then from just a troubled household where they just don't feel comfortable or they feel they need some place to go to, are they just as welcome as homeless kids?

Correct.

Yep.

You know and something I was actually thinking about Frazee and Perham and Detroit Lake School bring in a guest speaker, I think they're from Chicago, but it's called The Lion Heart Experience and they talk about these kids that just kind of float in the middle.

I was actually talking with my 13-year-old daughter and she was asking why there's such a hard time in identifying homeless youth and I said you know because sometimes educators and people in our communities have some blinders on and we look at the star athletes, we look at maybe the National Honor Society kids, you see them in the hallways and then you see the kids that have behaviors you see them in the hallways but you don't see all the other kids that are floating by in the middle.

So the drop-in is for everybody, it is not just for those kids that are at risk or those kids that are homeless, if they just want a safe place to hang out because there's not in Park Rapids, there's no place for youth to go unless they're in a sporting activity or they're going to a basketball game that kind of thing so it is for all youth.

And there's somebody there to talk to if they want to chat with an adult.

Correct, yep, we have a group of volunteers, they're all background checked and they I think actually all of our volunteers are in either nursing or a Human Services field so that's kind of cool like they maybe have never the youth have never seen these adults but they really do grow relationships with them.

I get the joke quite a bit if I say I have to leave and somebody else is staying and they're like why are you leaving, where are you going, what are you doing, but they're slowly getting used to other people coming in so there is always an adult there.

Yes.

Well, and I was going to speak to the fact that it's also really nice for them to interact with a lot of these adults in a kind of a non-clinical non-medical setting, that it's just a laid-back environment where they can share whatever they want to share and they can be as open and honest as they want to be.

And more importantly what we're really able to do is we're able to just provide that stability where we have an adult there that if someone's having a good day or a tough day what we're able to do is they can just talk it out or they can, you know, we can play some cards or play some games just different things that we can do as volunteers and then the goal is to really interact more with the community.

So right now we have a small group of volunteers that are putting in a decent amount of hours but long term we really want to expand this where it's a community-driven organization where we're getting kind of an individual that may be you know semi-retired or retired to simply come in and you know volunteer every Wednesday or you know if they don't want to interact so much just cook for the kids or things like that and really make it part of the community.

The other piece, and Kori briefly touched on it, is you know another hidden group that we see are these children that are struggling with domestic violence at home, abuse and there's a level of housing insecurity with that that we've had kids that, you know, have their actual household maybe have stable housing but themselves do not because of sexuality or because of that unstable nature of their household and those individuals we're also welcoming to make sure that this is that safe place.

Well, we are out of time for this edition of Lakeland Currents.

We thank you both for your good work and for coming in for our show today.

Location one more time quickly.

Yes 600 Park Avenue North, Park Rapids, Minnesota, the very front, facing Highway 71, and stay tuned because we are moving up to 5,000 ft in 2026.

Again it's called Youth Emergency Shelter and Supports.

That's Lakeland Currents, I'm Todd Haugen.