When we think of the homeless population, many people envision single men, many middle aged or elderly, some with mental health needs or issues with substance abuse. This homeless population, however, is not a large percentage of the over all homeless and highly mobile population in the US. In fact, homeless women, children, and families are expanding rapidly. It is hard to fully understand the scope of the issues surrounding homelessness and it is easy to get overwhelmed.
There are over 20,000 youth in Minnesota each year that are homeless or highly mobile. These young people vary in age but are all under the age of 21. They come from all parts of the state, and from a very wide variety of backgrounds. Like any other group, there are trends among homeless youth, but you would not necessarily know them if you saw them at the mall, at school or at a community program. Many work and attend school despite the incredible difficulties encountered in each place. Many have the same kinds of hopes and dreams as any other youth you might meet or work with, but they all have enormous hurdles to face, and they all need support from their communities to successfully overcome those hurdles.

One youth that has overcome several hurdles is Jessyca. Jessyca was at-risk of being homeless. She was living in a transitional housing program and had limited work experience. She was also working hard on some mental health issues and her educational goals. She needed a supportive place to get work experience to help her maintain her housing while she put energy into her other goals. She came to Elpis and excelled in the screen-printing and woodworking programs. She mastered the art of facilitating community "building" workshops at Minneapolis Parks and local nature centers. She learned from the ground up how to screen print T-shirts and can now manage the entire process. She has trained many of the youth that enrolled after her. She successfully used her experience at Elpis to gain employment at Minneapolis Parks and Recreation. She has moved out of the transitional housing program and is in her own apartment.

Some youth face one of the above issues and some face several. These are barriers that can seem insurmountable to an isolated young person bouncing from couch to couch or spending the week at a youth shelter. Community and social service support are especially important for these youth because they may not have any other adults in their life they can trust or depend on, and they may not have access to any other safe place to spend their time. This support can come from the work and leadership programs at Elpis. At Elpis Enterprises homeless youth are treated with the compassion, humor, lack of judgment and care that all youth deserve to be treated with.

Your contribution to Elpis Enterprises supports:

- Internship and training programs for homeless youth
- Afterschool programs at Minneapolis Parks and Recreation
- Educational programs at Twin Cities nature centers
- An opportunity for youth to showcase their leadership potential

Elpis Enterprises is youth development through social enterprise.