Although Sonoma County residents are struggling with a global pandemic and intense fire season, fortunately, homelessness in local youth is declining.

Last year, the amount of people under the age of 25 experiencing homelessness was almost double the amount it is now. With the help of organizations, such as Social Advocates for Youth, that number has decreased significantly–but, not completely. After a surge this summer in the amount of youth experiencing houselessness, there are still around 300 homeless young people throughout the county. 

“I can share from first-hand experience how much sweat and compassion have been invested (alongside those vital dollars) in reaching vulnerable youth and families across the county. And I want to stress that ‘vulnerable youth’ means so much more than the 300 who are on the streets. We’re also talking about young people who don’t have work-ready skills, who are experiencing mental health challenges, or who are barely making the rent from month-to-month even with two minimum wage jobs,” said SAY board member Susan Barnes in an article by the Sonoma County Gazette.

SAY has helped 1,200 homeless youth receive mental health care, find jobs, and more, in 2020 alone. Unlike last year though, SAY will not have the proper funding to provide resources for these young people like they have before. Funding has been cut due to the economic stress put on the county from wildfire season and COVID-19. 

Back in June of 2019, Sonoma County experienced an increase of about 29% in homeless youth from the year before. This increase resulted in a houseless population of around 650 youth. 

“There were really quite big shifts toward ‘housing first’ initiatives just in the last year, and that means we have been getting chronically homeless [people]…off the street, in a way that’s been making a dent in that population,” said Executive Director of the Sonoma County Community Development Commission, Margaret Van Vliet in the Argus Courier. 

According to the Argus Courier, people under the age of 25 are “the most challenging population to try to house.” There is often a lack of consistent funds and other resources to help this population, and many people believe that compassion is hard to come by when it comes to those experiencing houselessness. 

“You know, as a community, if we were just to think about, ‘what’s the life experience that’s happening to each one of those young people as it get dark every night?’, it’s really worth our attention and understanding the factors, and then going to work on understanding what we can do about it,” said CEO of Social Advocates for Youth Katrina Thurman.

This past August, it became apparent how drastically COVID-19 was affecting these populations. Aside from youth, there are collectively about 3,000 Sonoma County residents who do not have permanent housing. Due to shelter-in-place orders, housing people became that much more difficult. 

Though there is still a great amount of youth and people in general without permanent housing, many statistics allocate focus on the decrease of houselessness in the county, over time. 

According to the Healdsburg Tribune, “The current homeless picture across Sonoma County may differ by statistics, but the daily physical conditions are familiar. With…bed and shelter shortage for the vulnerable shelterless population, the incidents of unauthorized encampments persist, as does the routine rousteing and removal of the camps as they grow bigger.”

SAY accepts donations and thanks to their 3-40 campaign, donations will be matched up to $100,000 by the John Jordan Foundation, the Do-Gooder Fund, and St. Joseph Health. To find out more about SAY, the 3-40 campaign, and how to help, visit: justgiving.com/campaign/3Forty.