OUR PLANS ARE SIMPLE, TO AID AGAINST YOUTH POVERTY, AND NOW WE PLAN TO OPEN FOUR INNER CITY YOUTH HOUSES ACROSS ALL NEW BRUNSWICK THIS SPRING, AND THAN FOUR MORE BY WINTER 2010.
YOUTH POVERTY IS OUR FIGHT
UNITED YOUTH FEDERATION INC 2010
United Youth Federation Inc. 25 Elizabeth Court Saint John New Brunswick E2K-4W7 Canada
Website www.unitedyouthfederation.com Email unitedyouthfederation@hotmail.com
Phone 506 645-7286
WEBSITE OF THE UNITED YOUTH FEDERATION INC
www.unitedyouthfederation.com
The United Youth Federation is all about the services that it provides. We take our youths off the street and help them get back on their feet.
With counselling, job hunting, clothing them, and making sure that they have a full stomach. There is nothing better that we could do for them, except finding them shelter, which we now have our own solution, which we plan to incorporate with the Inner City Youth House NB Projects.
We hire youths for our own campaigns as well as the fundraising campaigns of others. This allows us to employ the community's youths full time. It allows them some financial freedom and a way to get off the street and to a better place, we do not seek funds from any level of government, it is our policy not to, today and forever.
UNITED YOUTH FEDERATION INC IS A NON-PROFIT YOUTH FOR YOUTH ORGANZIATION THAT WAS FORMED FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE TO HELP YOUTH.
WE ARE DEDICATED TO THE FORGOTEEN YOUTH OF NEW BRUSWICK, TO HELP, TO CREATE, TO UNITE, TO GIVE.
YOUTHF FOR YOUTH 2010
Inner City Youth Houses Project 2010
The United Federation Inc. along with Robert Raynes the founder of the federation plans to open four of these such houses in New Brunswick, these houses will be created by each community, and supported by its community.
The Inner City Youth Houses for New Brunswick will be focusing on youth poverty, a very serious problem in NB, a problem that continues to grow with each year, our objective is to give these young people a place that will be able to help them with their three basic needs, to work with each youth on a one to one basic, provide not only support but help towards their poverty level.
Many youth groups in NB are designed to help young people from all ages, but very few are designed to address the needs for the homeless youth as well the youth on poverty.
This group is in need of such service, services that will be dedicated to their most important needs and that is their three basic needs that each and every citizens have the rights to have.
New Brunswick poverty level continues to get higher with each year; we continue to have more people living in poverty than any other city in the country.
The reason is that we have too many young people living in poverty and for most part; most of them will continues to live in poverty into their adult life.
THE PATTERN OF A HOMELESS YOUTH
First they become homeless and then forgotten, back in 1995 we created a pattern from researching up to 100 young teens, the pattern shows you the step by step taken by a young teen from the day one they leave home, but first allow us to share with you the two types of homeless teens of New Brunswick.
There are two types of homelessness within our youth community; we must be able to tell them apart.
Type one homeless youth is a youth who may leave homes because of rules, these are the kids who do not want to live by the rules set out by their parents, these kids think moving out is cool and that they can do whatever they choose to do, now let’s remember why they left home, and that was rules, so the teen will move out thinking he or she is free from their parents, the parents in most cases will allow the teen to move back in after experiences the hardships of living on one’s own, after a couple of days to week, the teen will move back home, which this has become a learning experience to himself or herself, most of us had experiences this while growing up, it has become a learning experiences.
Type two homeless youth is a youth who leaves homes because of abuse which can come in many forms, this group of teens cannot return back home, so they must live on one own , which will lead them into a pattern that would lead them to a life of poverty and crime THE PATTERN OF A TYPE TWO HOMELESS YOUTH
Once the teen is kick out, he or she than will look for shelter through their friends, they will go to one friend’s house to another friend’s house, and once they run out of friends’ homes to go to, they will seek for shelter offered to them by local governments or organizations’, their search becomes endless and they find out that there are no rooms available for them to go.
Because they have no shelters to go to they take the next step and that is to talk to a social worker so they can get a once in a month welfare cheque which does not give them enough for their three basic needs which is shelter, food, clothing.
The youth is now finding other young people who are also homeless and they start hanging around each other, the youth missed so many days from school by this time, the school board decides to kick t hem out, to the youth the need of survival had become more important than their education, so now the youth is not only homeless he or she is no longer in school, a very important tool to fight poverty.
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Their search will lead them to family members and friends, which most of their friends are also on welfare fearing if they allow them to use their address they may lose their cheque themselves, but
overall the youth will find an address to give to the worker, once that this done, than the youth is approve to receive help from their department which will give them a cheque of $350.00 per month as of 2009, these benefits were supposed to increase to $500.00 as of 2010.
Now the youth must wait a month to receive their first cheque, so they start borrowing money off of other friends, by the time the end of the month comes they have no money left, so the next step put them in a depression, which leads them to drugs and crime.
DRUGS AND CRIMES
Because of the youth very unstable situation, they find themselves doing drugs thinking by doing so will take them away from the life they are living, a life of poverty, once the drugs come into play with a youth, than small crime come into play, which most times will lead the young teen to a court and then a criminal record.
Now our young youth has fallen into all parts of this pattern, from homeless or unstable shelters, a high school dropout, and now having a criminal record, within months this teen has manager to become what we call ' Forgotten Youth of New Brunswick '.
Poverty has a beginning stage, and it is now time that government officials see where it all begins and how it will end.
ONCE VOICE FOR ALL
This was a group that was created back in the 90s a group that was formed by Pam Coats, a group who goal was to fight government of poverty issues, this was a strong group of people, the group was made up of people from the ages of 21 to 70 years of age, a very dedicated group of people who continues to address the McKenna government back in the 80th.
Back in 1992, I called Pam Coats requesting a meeting with her group, myself and Jamie Doyle who at the time was our executive youth attending one of their group meeting, I ask Pam if I could ask her group a couple of questions about poverty, I was given permission to do so.
What we wanted to know was how many of these 26 people started a life of welfare and why, the question was ask to 26 people of one voice for all and out of the 26 people we found out that 90% of them were on assistance since they too were youth, and 85% of them quit school before grade 12.
So now we see that if nothing is done today than many of our young people who fall victim to poverty could continue a life of poverty by the time they reach adulthood.
Now lets go back to the patter that they have fallen into, let’s remember, they quit school, they have a criminal record, without a proper education they lost their stepping stone to a better job, and with a criminal record they have even less chances of employment.
Most of these young teens don’t know any other type of life, they were forced to survive so young, they had to sleep outside; bath in a public washroom, and much more, poverty had become the only life they know.
During our young teen life, this is the time of life that we starting building our futures, this is the growing stages in life, they are leaving child hood into adult hood, so for a child who was forced to live a life on the streets, how do we expect them to break free from the only life they know.
Inner City Youth Houses (Poverty Houses) will be a center created by youth for youth, allowing youth the opportunity to reach out to their peers and offer them help.
INNER CITY YOUTH HOUSES AND COMMUNITIES
Once a Inner City Youth House is open up in a community, than it will belong to that community, which all money raised in that community will support its own center for youth, for example, Moncton Inner City Youth House will be made available for Moncton youth who are living in poverty, the center’s main objective will be to reach out to all youth in need of help.
Money raised for that community will support its own center, and its own youth who use the center, these centers will be unique because of its format the youth for youth format.
YOUTH FOR YOUTH FORMAT
In 1995, we incorporated the federation, when doing so, we created a format that we continue to use as the main foundation of this organization, which is known as youth for youth.
Youth for Youth is a format that allows young people the opportunity to work with their peers, to be able to reach other to their community, it’s also allows them the opportunity to make important decisions with the development period of each center, each center will have a youth board of directors, who will run and operate these center’s for their community, allowing the youth a place to call their own, each center will be run under this format.
A provincial board of directors will be made up of each local president who represents each community where we have a Inner City Youth House, the provincial board of directors will oversee the whole operation of each center, they will have the power to take part into important votes allowing them to make sure that each center’s continues to work under the format of youth for youth.
INNER CITY YOUTH HOUSE PROJECT
Each Inner City Youth House will host the same programs and projects in each community; each house will offer services towards youth living in poverty.
Each house will have a night time soup program which will run from the hours of 6pm to 8pm, seven days a week; the soup program will offer hot meals each night of the week to youth who fall under the age of 25.
Each house will also have its own Youth Clothing Depot which will offer free youth clothing to our youth all year round, our clothing depot will be different than others because we will be only seeking out youth clothing and we will be offering free youth clothing types according to the season, meaning if it is Summer, we than will only have Summer clothing made available to them, we will also be offering free tooth brushes and tooth paste to the homeless youth community.
Each house will have its own Youth Job Search Centre (Odd Job Service), the YJS has been running for over 15 years with great success which we were able to help hundreds of young people with jobs that came in from the private sector, we made both part-time and full-time jobs from the odd job market, now we want to include this great program into the INNER CITY YOUTH HOUSE.
Most of these young people living in poverty or on the streets will be able to enter this program which we would offer those many odd jobs allowing them the opportunity to make some extra money each month, we are very proud to welcome the Youth Job Search Centre to the Inner City Youth House Project for New Brunswick.
Youth Resource Centre, this part of the center would allow young people the opportunity to go on a computer, do job searching, create a resumes, do faxing and emailing’s, we also have a dedicated phone line made available for those looking for employment but does not have a phone line, which we would allow the young person the use of that phone line to put on his or her resumes, the resource center is also a place where we will have a list of all the available services to them, from soup kitchens, G.E.D and other important services.
OPEN LETTER TO THE MEDIA OF NEW BRUNSWICK
AND SELECTED PROVINICAL GOVERNMENT MINISTER OF NB
FROM ROBERT RAYNES AND THE UNITED YOUTH FEDERATION INC.
I wish to present you a copy of a propose project which I plan to put together this Spring, a project which is very dear to me, and one that I am happy to present to our “Forgotten Youth of NB”.
My project is a project created by heart, and my dream is to see one of these very special youth centers put in every community in New Brunswick, some may find fault with it, that is expected, but for the sake of youth poverty, than allow the critics against change to stay away.
I hope you enjoy these papers, please forgive the grammar, and thank you.
Sincerely Yours
Robert Raynes
United Youth Federation Inc.
Youth Start Up Program, this program is a project that will allow us to offer a warm and safe place for our homeless youth, here is how it will work.
START UP APARTMENT PROJECT
The UYF will rent one to two apartments at first, once we rent these apartments, we would then have a stove, fridge, table and chairs in the kitchen, in the liver room we would only have a couch, a television, with a DVD player, and the two bed rooms would only have a bed and dresser in each room.
These apartments would only be available to our young clients, 30 days per client, when someone is put in to one of these apartments, they must not be doing drugs, drink, and must be willing to go back to school as well go to work ( Part-Time for students) ( Full-Time for non-students ), each apartment food will come from the federation, which we would make sure that each apartment has enough food for two people which would only cover their three basic meals, each apartment will also be smoke free, once all that is done than we are ready to help the homeless with this great project.
Many homeless youth can’t break free because they are forced to live the streets as there is none or very few shelters made available to them, during many years of research on this matter, we found that if a young person has a place to go to from the streets, they have a better chance to break free of poverty within a couple of months, they are still young and we must make sure they are in school, anyone who lives in one of these federation owned start up apartment must go back to school.
We call it Start Up Apartment because that is what it is, it a start for the many people who will live in there, each apartment will be able to house two young people, once two young people are approved by the federation to live in one of these apartment, we than will start the process, first schooling, second the department of human resources development, third, a resumes and job search, for 30 days they will be able to live there free of rent, we will provide them their three basic needs for 30 days, but they have to want to get off of welfare and be willing to go back to school and work.
TAKEN FROM OUR WORLD WIDE WEBSITE
During the ages of 16 – 21, we make some of the most important decisions to help mole our future. For any person to have a chance for a promising future they must first continue education. For most of young people on assistance, their decisions are not based on education but survival. Other three quarters of these young people will obtain themselves a criminal record before their lives have even begun.
Who we are:
The Inner City Youth House is a resource center for teens from 16 to 21. We provide food, youth clothing, household items, bedding, hot meals & a shoulder to the more needy youth in our community. We also have about 25 computers, phones, Internet, showers and odd jobs for the youth.
Our House will provide clothing and food and hot meals to the more needy youth of our community, the whole idea is to have all schools involved with this project as they will play a major role with the passing out of both youth clothing and food.
Each month the centre will have a food and clothing drive at all local schools, from high schools to junior high school.
The Federation will send a truck around each month to collect all food and clothing donations from all schools within the community of the Inner City Youth House, the food and clothing will than be stored in the house and then passed out to the more needy youth in each community that we have one of these house set up.
The Inner City Youth House will also host free meals throughout the month, a list will be created with the names of those who want to come in for a free meal.
The Inner City Youth House also plans to have it own resource centre, the resource centre will allow us to help youth by providing jobs to them to allowing them to come in and go on one of our many computers that are set up, we will also offer free faxing, free emails, and resumes, workshops, youth employment programs and much more.
This house will be an asset to those in need of the assistance.
On July 18th 2006, the federation is planning to develop a new program which will be aimed at homeless youth, please read the detail layout on the START UP YOUTH APARTMENT.
Now the Federation is in the preparing to rent a apartment, which will have a bed, a stove, and a shower, the apartment will be called the START UP APARTMENT, we need to focus on their needs, for them to survive, they need shelter, a place to help them start up their young lives, our idea is very simple, we will offer them an apartment which will provide them their three basic needs, shelter, food, clothing, in return the two people in this apartment will look for employment with our help, we will than move them out of the start-up apartment and set them up with their own apartment, which we will always set up two people, now these two people have income from their jobs, and a home to call their own, once we have these two young people sat up with a secure apartment as well income from their jobs, we will start on the next two who move into the start-up apartment, which will be created by the United Youth Federation Inc. and the Inner City Youth House. For these kids to make it, they need a place to start them off, we believe that if we offer them their three basic needs, and help them we can make a difference for them, from homeless to being employed and enjoying the same benefits we do, having a place to call home.
The start-up apartment will be available to help the youth who are on the streets, as we will take them in two and place them up for 30 days allowing them time to find secure employment which we will also help them with, now they have an address a phone line, they can now look for employment so they can live on their own, avoiding welfare, the system
OTHER SERVICES FOR YOUTH IN POVERTY
Others services include our shoe box program which has been created for homeless youth, which we will have three different types of shoe boxes made available to them, one with food, and the two others for cleaning supplies, one for men and one for women, food boxes will be available seven days a week, which they will be able to come in each day to have their food box refilled, cleaning boxes are refilled every two weeks.
Shoe Box ( Food Boxes ), back in 2007 we develop a box for the homeless youth which we called it the homeless youth shoe box program, we have given out hundreds of shoes boxes ever since from our Saint John center from 2007-2009.
Youth Food Bank, as I mention there are two types of youth we will be focusing on, one being the homeless youth and the other being the youth living on poverty, these are the youth who have a place to call their own, but lack the other two basic needs which one being food and the other being clothing, so as we have shoe boxes made available for the homeless youth we will have a youth food bank made available to our youth in poverty, which we will provide them three bags of food each week, one bag will contain breakfast items, one bag will be for dinner items and one bag for supper items and treats, our young clients will be able to come in once a week for food assistance.
The center will also have a movies area within the center, which will be open every night till 1100pm, see we are a night time center, because most of all other services are closed during the evening time, so these people have nowhere to go during the early evening except for a city park, or a mall, our television area of the center will have a big screen TV and many DVD’s to choose from, the sitting will be for about 25 to 50 people, this area of the center will be made up like an average liver room, allowing our young clients the opportunity to feel some sense of home while staying there.
Monday to Friday we will have free coffee, tea, hot chocolate. Made available all night long, along with a bread area with many spreads, we will also have popcorn available for them, they deserve treats like you and me, just because they are homeless, we cannot judge what to give them, and they are youth so we want them not to feel a shame of their situation.
Homelessness in New Brunswick
Being homeless in New Brunswick, one must wonder why are they not enough services made available to them, Saint John NB for example, is the worse city in the country for those who find themselves homeless, and we have only one shelter and one soup kitchen.
Shelters of Saint John, the salvaging army is the one and only shelter program in the city, this shelter clients are client who remain there for long term which leaves very little room for those who may a place for a night or so, during the Fall of 2009 we had three young people who approached Robert Raynes for help, they were looking for a place to stay, the ages of these three youth were from 17 to 21, Robert took it upon himself to call the one and only shelter in the city, each time he called, they told him that they have no bed available, for over a month, they continue to tell him no bed, so Robert took measures in his own hands to help these kids, we need more shelters for Saint John, and Fredericton knows how bad we need them, but continue to avoid this issue.
Soup Kitchen for Saint John, we only have one soup kitchen made available for all people living in poverty, but there hours are not great, they open at 9am and close at 2pm, and for most of these homeless people they will not receive a meal at night time, this is one of the main reasons Robert Raynes decided to open the Inner City Youth Houses at night, to give them a place to come and eat, a place from the night time cold.
Saint John Poverty level continues to rise and for youth in poverty is continues to rise in a arming numbers, but the services made available to them do not increase, instead they are fewer organizations than ever to assist these people, Saint John is the capital of poverty on all of the Maritimes.
Inner City Youth House may not be the solution, but it can help reduce the number of youth depending on welfare for the rest of their lives, the goal is to focus on the beginning stages, offer them help while they are still young enough to receive it, give them hope where all else fails them, these are youth of New Brunswick who lost their home, they are lost within a society that continues to avoid the cries of the forgotten youth.
The creation of these centers can help many of our young people during their beginning stages, they need a place that will be able to work with them one youth at a time, we must help them to be able to receive their three basic needs, if not we will see many of these young people continue a life of welfare, as you can see if these youth fall into that pattern that was mention in this report, they will most certainly continue this way of life, due to the fact they have quit school and for most obtain a criminal record.
Robert Raynes is the founder of this organization and for over 17 years he had created many programs and projects to help these kids in the most need, now his dream project is the opening of these houses allowing each community to run and operate these such houses in their community under the youth for youth format, the time has now come, we must look into the many issues of homeless youth, and the many effects this will have on their futures, we must all work together for the sake of our youth, my dream is to have these houses open, to show the full-effect these house will have on our youth in poverty, and I will continue to see these houses come together, a promise to the homeless that I will open these houses, but for this to happen we need help from all types and forms of media, other organizations that care for our youth, government officials who would be willing to help us gain rent free spaces for these houses, we ask not for money from government but will ask for spaces so that we can open these houses in each community.
WE MUST GIVE THESE HOUSES A CHANCE TO PROVE THAT THEY CAN WORK AND WILL BE ABLE TO ASSIST THE MANY HOMLELESS YOUTH IN OUR PROVINCE, GET THEM BACK IN SCHOOL SO THAT THEY CAN BREAK FRRR FROM A LIFE OF POVERTY.
YOUTH FOR YOUTH
I would like to talk more about this format, I mention this format within these pages, but I would like to explain the power that this format has and what it can do.
Back in 1992, I founded the Saint John Youth Committee, a committee that I formed for the sole purpose to address the many issues of youth poverty, and since then I continue to fight for changes on a provincial governmental level, which I have seen nothing, so I decided that we will be an organization that would create programs and projects to help those youth living on poverty.
I created a format, which I was very proud of because I was able to see it work, and that format was the youth for youth , which means youth helping youth, allowing youth an opportunity to take part in all major decision making matters of this organization, from that format we created a very successful Youth Job Search Centre which was created by youth for youth, and for over 10 years this odd job program was able to create thousands of dollars’ worth of jobs for our young people, because we decided to focus on a market that no other is focusing on, and to organize this market.
So we gather up ten youth between the ages of 15 to 18, we summited the idea to them, and then we told them to create a service from this idea, a service that would allow them to create work for themselves, after two months working each day on this, they created the youth job search center which was created to offer a service to the private sector
Youth Job Search Centre Project
Youth for Youth 2010
The Youth Job Search Centre is a project that was developed by youth for youth back in the early 90s, ten young people sitting in a board room all between 15 to 18.
With the high employment rate in New Brunswick, many of our younger teens were not able to find employment because most jobs were given to those youth who were either in secondly education or going into secondly education, so we pose a question to our young group, and that question was, what can we do to help create work for our young teens.
For over two hours the youth group continue to look for ideas, till Pat Leblanc a 16 year old youth at the time made a statement which would lead the way to the development of the Youth Job Search Centre, Pat said why not look into a market no one else seems to focus on and that market is ODD JOBS.
So the group decided to focus on that subject and work with other ideas that lead to creating both part-time and full-time employment from this market.
Within the middle of summer of 1992, all ten young teens were able to create themselves both part-time and full-time employment from this market and the rest is history.
The Youth Job Search Centre was a major success and we ran this teen odd job program for over ten years creating thousands and thousands of dollars for our young people, we organized this market and now we want to bring this program into the Inner City Youth House.
By bringing this program to the INNER CITY YOUTH HOUSE would allow us to help our homeless youth as well youth in poverty by providing them a program that would allow them to make extra money, to help them along the way during their poverty days.
As you can see, the youth for youth format was used with the development of this project and this was a very successful project that had create many jobs in Saint John, Hampton, Grand Bay, Quispamsis, created in a small board room with ten young teens who wanted to do something about youth unemployment which was a major issue during those day because of the new GST which cost
The youth community have lost many government funded programs as well youth employment which was at its highest in years, youth for youth works is a format that has been tested and it works, every project or program created by the federation always falls under the youth for youth, we build our organization from this format, because we believe the solution for helping youth comes right from their community, Youth Job Search Centre was a success because we allow these ten young people the opportunity to prove it given the chance and opportunity that it will work.
Young people are very important to the future of this great country of our that we call CANADA , they are our future doctors, lawyers, leaders, we must believe in them, and allow them to make important decisions, their decisions, by doing so then we can see the effects of youth for youth.
We know how poverty begins, and we must be able to help them, every Canadian is entitle to have a roof, a meal, and clothing, but many of our young people who fall victims to the streets due to poverty, they are robbed from those basic rights, because we hope that they will go back home, one does not have to be a blind to see what happens to these forgotten youth once they fall victims to the streets, the pattern shows you what happens, now let’s all come together for the sake of our homeless youth, our project will work, we always look for solutions to youth poverty, but when a solution comes to government attention they find fault with it, and that is why we continue to see more and more young people continue to live a life of poverty right into their adult hood, these kids are in the transition period of their lives, and we must focus on their needs and those needs are simple, their basic needs which if we give it to them, many of them will remain in school, which as we all know is a very important tool towards their futures, we need to bring hope back to the youth, they are our future, and if our past does not focus on the future, than our youth has no hope for a fair chance for a better future.
INNER CITY YOUTH HOUSE
By now we all have an idea what this project means, and how it could work with the many youth living on our streets, a project that its number one agenda is to work with each youth living in poverty, one youth at a time, to make sure that each and every one of them are receiving their three basic needs.
This may not be the complete solution on youth poverty, but at lease it will be a start, all these kids need is help during their beginning stages, help in the three basic needs, which we are all entitle to receive as Canadians.
Inner City Youth House will provide these three basic needs to our forgotten youth.
FORGOTTEN YOUTH
What is a forgotten youth and how does one become one, well first of all they are a type two homeless youth, which means they cannot get back home, these are youth who are only able to receive a small check from the department of human resources development NB, there are no low income housing made available for this group, as a matter of fact this is the only group within our society who do not have low income housing made available, they are the forgotten group within our society, they are also the beginning of adult poverty, we must focus on them now while they are still young enough.
It gave me great pleasure to write this report and proposal, now my job is to make sure that the federations that I have founded open these very special houses, which too many it will known as the house of hope.
For over 17 years I have fought for this group, I have been subjected to abuse from government, local police, but I made a promise back in 1993, and that was I will help our forgotten youth and I will till the day I leave my earth, we all have our calling in life, and this was mine, most of my life was dedicated to this cause, no matter what and now I will do whatever it takes to see these houses of hope open up, allowing our youth a fair chance to break free from a life of poverty. |
