Thank you you to everyone that donated and your support! We will see you next year!
The Waypoint SleepOut is a solemn event that brings community members together to raise our collective consciousness about the plight of homeless youth, show solidarity, and raise funds to help stabilize and transform the lives of youth who become homeless.
The scope of the problem:
• 1 in 10 young adults, ages 18 to 25, and 1 in 30 adolescents ages 13 to 17, endures some form of homelessness in a year’s time. (Source: Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Voices of Youth Count, November, 2017)
• In a year’s time, over 1500 runaway, homeless, and at-risk youth access Waypoint services.
What WAYPOINT does:
• Waypoint seeks to change the trajectory of these young lives, providing young people with the support and skill they need to live safe and productive lives.
• Waypoint Street Outreach teams on the Seacoast and in Manchester spend 30 hours each week on the streets looking to engage homeless youth in life-changing services.
• Waypoint operates a drop-in center in Manchester, providing youth with access to food, clothing, hot showers, laundry facilities and access to a computer lab and community services. In addition, Waypoint helps youth to complete and further their education and helps with job search.
• Waypoint provides transitional housing for youth as they transition to self-sufficient, independent adults.
• Waypoint operates a mobile outreach van in 14 communities on the Seacoast, providing youth with food, clothing and connecting them with local resources.
• Waypoint works to identify the needs of homeless youth and develops solutions to issues such as unstable housing, violent relationships, mental health and substance use problems, and unmet medical needs.
Why we are sleeping out:
• We are sleeping out to raise awareness of homeless youth in NH, make sure homeless youth have access to the critical support they need, ensure that Waypoint staff can continue showing up for homeless youth when no one else will, to gain community interest and action in eradicating youth homelessness--because everyone deserves a warm, safe place to sleep each night.
