The Windsor Residence for Young Men (WRYM) looked back at the past two years on Wednesday since the organization was awarded $152,800 from the Resilient Communities Fund grant through the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF).
WRYM is a charitable organization that supports youth aged 16-24 and promotes the health, personal skills, and social empowerment of youth experiencing homelessness.
WRYM executive director Jason Weinberg says the grant allowed the organization to hire staff and establish the System Navigation project which assisted 62 youths.
"During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth had a limited amount of access to services and supports and traditional day to day routines which would usually give them the opportunity to establish the life skills and the support networks that would help them mitigate risks and stay safe. Well during the pandemic, with things being closed, there was a limited opportunity for youth to get those skills and get those supports."
He says during the time when youth were stuck at home with service restrictions, there were a lot of unmet needs of youth including trauma, mental health, self-harming, suicide, medication management.
Weinberg added that on the otherside of COVID-19, they wanted to make sure the most vulnerable populations were getting assistance to overcome those needs.
"Over eighty per cent of the youth we supported had identified being victims of family violence and abuse, over 85 per cent had mental health issues, and we were able to house 87 per cent of youth upon exit from this program. So youth who are exiting were able to acquire housing in a safe and sustainable way, in addition to thousands of life skills and hundred of referrals."
He says the difficulty with youth homelessness, is that it is one of the top contributors of hidden homelessness.
"Where youth are often in the position where there's friends where they are able to couch surf. They often stay away from the systems such as emergency shelters and so they can often go unaccounted for."
Weinberg says the organization serves 30 to 50 youth in their transitional housing program, and the aftercare program supports 100 other youth in their efforts to stay housed.
Those in need of support or resources can visit https://www.wrym.ca/ for more information.