HUCKLEBERRY HOUSE Cultural and Unified Support for San Francisco’S At-Risk Youth
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HUCKLEBERRY HOUSE Cultural and Unified Support For San Francisco’s At-Risk Youth MONICA N. CLEMENS Student: 1212327062 Arizona State University College of Integrative Sciences & Arts Grant Writing for TWC 443 Dr. Schnoll *Report Form and Style Licensed by Commons 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305 USA. Created by Keith A. Watson, CISSP on 3/1/2005 Table of Contents Request for Exemption from Electronic Filing ............................................................................... 3 Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Huckleberry House History ............................................................................................................ 5 Logic Model .................................................................................................................................... 7 Need for Assistance ..................................................................................................................... 7 Social and Emotional Balance ..................................................................................................... 8 Ethnicity, Gender and Age .......................................................................................................... 8 Goals and Objectives ................................................................................................................. 10 Always Home – Always On ...................................................................................................... 12 Program Performance Evaluation Plan ..................................................................................... 14 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 15 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 18 Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 19 Legal Status of Applicant Entity ............................................................................................... 19 Organizational Chart ................................................................................................................. 19 OMB Forms.......................................................................................................................... 19-28 Request for Exemption from Electronic Filing June 25, 2019 Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children & Families 330 C Street, SW Washington, DC 20201 Email: [email protected] Re: Huckleberry House San Francisco Application for Street Outreach Program Discretionary Grant HHS-2019-ACF-ACYF-YO-1554 Dear Mrs. Grantor, Huckleberry Youth Programs Inc. (Huckleberry House) of San Francisco is a collaborative youth services facility who manages triage and street outreach programs to approximately 7,000 teenage runaways per year. Our organization has been in operation since 1967 when we opened our first crisis center for teens on Haight Street in San Francisco. This year Huckleberry House dutifully requests the opportunity to compete for the Health and Human Services Street Outreach Program (HHS-SOP) grant by paper. We request exemption from electronic filing of our grant application because earlier this year (February 6, 2019) a contractor working in the neighborhood started a fire which caused water damage to Huckleberry House’s administrative offices. Because of the water damage our regular office equipment is in the repair shop. Thus, we are currently using donated equipment and cannot process the forms or files required to compete for this grant. Therefore, Huckleberry House requests permission to file our grant application by paper. Thank you! Monica N. Clemens Grant Writer for Arizona State University In re Huckleberry House Huckleberry House Unified Support for At-Risk Youth 4 Abstract San Francisco is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It is home to billion-dollar technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google.1 It is also home to approximately 7,000 teenage runaways on any given year. Runaways are defined in our City as children who run away from unhealthy family dynamics at home including: predatory sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse and neglect brought on by drug addiction or the absence of parents. These defective home situations are the most reported reason why teenagers decide their living conditions are intolerable at home and run. San Francisco, with all its amazing wealth also has one of the highest homeless populations in the Nation. The Health and Human Services Department Street Outreach Program grant (HHS-SOP) is aware of the shortcomings of city planning when it comes to teenage runaways. It pledges to follow the wishes of the people and Congress as outlined in the Runaway Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) (1974) and has designated monies to care for its at-risk youth. In this regard, HHS-SOP and Huckleberry House are similar as both agencies seek to intercept youth who may already be runaways or who are involved in activities on the streets, and who need shelter and care. California Senate Bill 160 presents staggering facts about the need for youth shelter and draws light to the fact that only “20 Counties out of California’s 58 Counties fully address the needs of young people.” It counts 76.3 percent of the runaways in the State as being homeless and further clarifies that “the number of emergency beds available to homeless youth have dropped from 587 beds in 1990, to 555 beds in 2010.” Adding to the shortage of teen help is the fact that there is only one teen telephone hotline in 1 S. Tibken (2018). Apple Becomes A Trillion-Dollar Company. CNET [Electronic Resource] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-becomes-a-trillion-dollar-company/ 1 S. Pichai (2019). $1 Billion For 20,000 Bay Area Homes Pledged By Google CEO. Google Blog [Electronic Resource] https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/1-billion-investment-bay-area-housing/ Huckleberry House Unified Support for At-Risk Youth 5 the State of California available for random calls and teen crisis response.2 That means a single dispatch system cares for teens who “have a disproportionate share of health, behavioral, and emotional problems because they lack sufficient resources to obtain care” for themselves.3 Huckleberry House is a good candidate for the HHS-SOP grant4 because it also has a 24 hour hotline, although it’s not part of the State’s dispatch system it is accountable to San Francisco and Marin Counties. It is a full spectrum collaborative agency that focuses on getting teens off the street as quickly as possible by providing emergency shelter and safe access to resources necessary for emotional, spiritual and physical recovery. Currently, Huckleberry House is creating an additional model for more intensive case management and outreach in San Francisco and Marin Counties. In so doing, Huckleberry will trace the shadows of the City’s current homeless navigation centers while providing satellite access to separate shelters for teens. The following pages of this grant application present Huckleberry’s ideas. Huckleberry House History Since its inception in 1967, more than 200,000 at-risk youth have benefited from intervention and resources provided by Huckleberry House. It is a fifty-one-year-old licensed teen crisis intervention center with locations in San Francisco and Marin Counties, California. This highly credentialed organization specializes in crisis counseling and emergency shelter for 2 McGuire (2016). California Senate Bill 160, states “California Coalition for Youth has operated the California Youth Crisis Line (18—843-5200), 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 27 years, as the State’s only teen emergency call system.” [Electronic Resource] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SCR160 3 Title 42 United States Code Section 5701 – The Public Health and Welfare. [Electronic Resource] https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-42-the-public-health-and-welfare/42-usc-sect-5701.html 4 Health and Human Services, Street Outreach Program Grant (2019). Application. HHS-2019-ACF-ACYF-YO- 1554_0.pdf Huckleberry House Unified Support for At-Risk Youth 6 teens and provides uninterrupted timely response to at-risk youth who are faced with living on the streets. Huckleberry House redirects children away from the streets and into shelters while providing resources such as continuous counseling for human trafficking survivors, healthcare, juvenile justice support, stipends for school and job training. McGuire Senate Bill 160 describes human trafficking as “an estimated 300,000 youth [are] at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation. ”5 Huckleberry House is also one of very few 24/7 emergency shelters for at-risk youth in California State which absorbs nearly 38% of the entire runaway population in the United States. Ibid. Even with statistics stacked against them, however, Huckleberry House has been very successful at rescuing teens. Its administrative offices in the inner Richmond District of San Francisco operate intuitive, resourceful and strong support for teenagers and include a Wellness Academy which helps at-risk teens graduate from High School and boasts 100% success rate for high school