From Surviving to Striving, then Thriving Northwest Youth Services

WRITTEN BY COCOA LANEY PHOTOS COURTESY OF NORTHWEST YOUTH SERVICES

WE ALL DREAM of building a community where everyone can belong, especially the most vulnerable among us and Northwest Youth Services (NWYS) has been working to make that dream a reality since 1976. What began as a foster program has blossomed into a multifaceted organization that provides a range of social services for 13- to 24-year-olds experiencing homelessness or unstable housing. Now, under the leadership of Executive Director Jason McGill, its impact in Whatcom, Skagit, and Island counties only continues to grow.

Breaking Cycles, Building Resilience

It might be easy to look at homelessness as the result of a bad decision or two, but McGill says that the reality is more nuanced. Many NWYS clients are trapped in a cycle of generational homelessness and since young people become conditioned to the environments they grow up in, breaking out of that cycle is extremely difficult.

“If you’re born into homelessness, your survival skills are kicking in. ... You’re trying to make decisions to get to the next day,” McGill Says. “Our job is to paint a picture of: What do you actually want to become? Let’s tap back into those dreams from when you were a kid. Because you can actually do this but let’s do it in partnership, so you can achieve them.”

Of course, the first step of getting out of survival mode is finding stable housing. In addition to the PAD, which is a shortterm shelter for youth ages 13–17, NWYS has a Transitional Living Program, a Rapid Rehousing program, and even provides rental assistance to youth ages 18–24 who are behind on housing payments.

“We also serve Skagit County, and we just purchased a property down there,” McGill says. “So we’re doing a lot of purchasing right now. … At some point we had to make a decision [about] our future, and our future is in ownership to build equity for young people.”

But beyond meeting these basic needs, NWYS’ goal is to help youth build lifelong resiliency and autonomy. This also means putting a stop to the generational cycles that lead kids to become homeless in the first place.

“It’s not just housing. It’s not just jobs,” McGill says. “It’s the whole package of partnering with young people and creating a pathway out of poverty with them, for them.”

McGill notes that Whatcom County’s size and numerous social services make it an ideal place for putting an end to youth homelessness. In fact, these unique conditions were an incentive for him to move from Seattle in 2021 to join NWYS in the first place.

“I did feel like Whatcom County was a community that was primed and destined to actually end youth and young adult homelessness,” he says. “Not functioning zero I’m talking about literally ending, because we have the resources up here to do it.”

NWYS Programming

One of McGill’s first tasks with NWYS was to establish one singular program, Bloom, that encompasses previously disparate services like housing, behavioral services, employment and education services, outreach, and teen court.

“It’s called Bloom because you blossom out of the soil with community,” McGill says. “Now, we have sites that offer different services.”

Another important Bloom program is Queer Youth Services (QYS), which provides education and advocacy for queer youth, their loved ones, and community providers. According to the Trevor Project, 28% of LGBTQ+ youth reported experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives, and these rates are even higher for transgender youth.

“That’s another reason why young people become homeless because they’re fleeing a violent situation, whether physically or mentally,” McGill says. “That’s why QYS is important; it’s mainly to build community for young people who have shared identity, so they can see: Oh, snap, I can do this. I can be successful, I can dream and really embrace my healing. Because I deserve to be me.”

This kind of representation and advocacy is also important for BIPOC folks. Black and Brown kids are overrepresented among youth facing homelessness even in a predominately white city like Bellingham and so McGill makes a conscious effort to ensure that NWYS staff members are as diverse as the community they work with.

Additionally, in a study reported on by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 70% of youth who have experienced homelessness reported facing mental health difficulties. NWYS’ behavioral health services go beyond simply treating immediate symptoms or prescribing medication; rather, they take a holistic, trauma-informed perspective. This Whole Person Care Approach promotes resilience, thereby helping young people to thrive despite their diagnosis because, as McGill underlines, “their diagnosis is not them.”

Investing in a Stronger Community

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed to the point of apathy when it comes to systemic issues like homelessness. However, McGill invites people to look inward and reflect on the kind of community they want to live in years down the road. Many of us desire a community where everyone can belong but how do we move in that direction? According to McGill, the first steps involve unpacking our own individual biases and habits.

“We have to bring it back to ourselves and figure out how [to] break down fear,” he says. “If I’m just walking by someone who visibly presents as someone who’s experiencing homelessness, whether young person or adult, where’s my fear within that? And how can I start to see them as a human first, and not as their situation?”

NWYS provides a platform for these kinds of questions and conversations through their community book club, Healing Pages. And, for those who want to take their involvement a step further, the organization is always accepting volunteer applications and donations. You can learn more about or on social media @nwyouthservices.

“We want to be intentional in this, because we understand that when people donate or invest, they’re trusting us to make the right decision with those resources,” McGill says. “So you’re investing again into a young person’s healing journey, which is super important not just for that young person, but for the wellness of our entire community.”

1020 N. State St., Bellingham, 360.734.9862, nwys.org 

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