Center Line Spring 2019 – Shelter for Youth
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CENTERCENTER LINELINE Newsletter A publication of Center for Human Services www.centerforhumanservices.org SpringSpring 20192019 A nonprofit serving Stanislaus County since 1970 CENTER LINE Newsletter www.centerforhumanservices.org BOARD OF DIRECTORS Center Line is published by Center for Human Services’ Development and Communications Department as part of PRESIDENT Betsy Cottel an ongoing effort to inform and educate the public. Bill Bunnell Tyler de Camp Brett Dickerson EDITOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER PAST PRESIDENT/ Jorge Fernandez Jessica Irish Desiree Cervantes TREASURER Vicky Fierro Andrew Mosier Mark Goss Dirk Hoek SECRETARY Bruce McClellan Center for Human Services (CHS) is a nonprofit agency Patti Reeder Carmen-Maria Navarro serving youth and families since 1970. Our mission is Laura Parker to change lives and build futures through programs that Danny Savage strengthen and support youth and families. We provide Tom Solomon proven prevention, education, treatment, counseling and shelter services in Stanislaus County. Contact Us: SENIOR LEADERSHIP EMAIL: [email protected] Cindy Duenas, MFT CALL: (209) 526-1476 Executive Director Gina Machado, MBA VISIT: Center for Human Services Director of Development and 2000 W. Briggsmore Ave., Suite I Communications Modesto, CA 95350 Betty Ann Martinho Finance Director ONLINE: Visit centerforhumanservices.org/newsletter Rosemary McFadden, MFT to read the online version of Center Line and to learn Program Director - Behavioral Health more about us. Taryn Muralt Program Director - Youth Services Lori Schumacher Program Director - Regional Services Connect With Us Carmen Wilson, CPA Operations Director Fb.com/CenterForHumanServices Twitter.com/CHS_Cares Instagram.com/CHS_Cares CenterforHumanServices.org/Subscribe 1 CENTER LINE | SPRING 2019 BY HEATHER ANTONINI, Hutton House Family Advocate STREET OUTREACH Heather Antonini is Center for Human Services’ (CHS) Family Advocate in Outreach and part of the larger Stanislaus County Outreach and Engagement Team tasked with engaging people who are experiencing homelessness in our community. Her goal is to connect them to resources that help get them off the streets. When I first took the position as a Family He spent months working with John is just one of many youth Advocate in Outreach, I had an image community support agencies, while experiencing homelessness in our of myself similar to that of a cartoon learning to overcome his addictions. He community and an example of character with a backpack and boots, is now on his journey to recovery and has how partnerships, hard work and out walking the streets. As it turns out, I been clean since November 24, 2018. perseverance can pay off. wasn’t that far off. John recently moved into Center for I continue my day-to-day work, regularly Outreach is not a typical eight to five Human Services’ Pathways program, a looking for ways we can help the office job. Some days consist of being supportive services program for young homeless. For teens ages 13 to 17, the under a freeway overpass, hiking along adults 18 to 24 years old. Residents can answer may be Hutton House, CHS’ the Tuolumne River or engaging with the stay at Pathways for up to 24 months shelter for teens. There, they can take homeless at Beard Brook Park. Engaging at no cost. During this time they receive hot showers, enjoy freshly prepared can mean sharing a meal with someone, weekly case management, substance meals, or participate in group activities. saying hello with a friendly smile, sitting use and mental health counseling, For up to three weeks at a time, they can in someone’s tent as they express their life skills training and many additional have a safe place to rest as we work to defeat or even placing someone at a safe supportive services. reconnect them to their natural system shelter for the night. of support. During the course of his homelessness, One of my first interactions was in John was faced with many adverse It isn’t easy work, but changing lives and September of 2018 with a young man situations: sleeping outside or in his building better futures rarely is. Every named John, a 21-year-old who recently friend’s vehicle with unpredictable form of outreach and engagement has became homeless after his mother weather, being bullied and assaulted, and the potential to make an impact on kicked him out for using marijuana. trying to secure employment so that he someone. could improve his living situation. John first landed at the Modesto Gospel Mission shelter, but it was not “I did everything in my power to keep long before he found himself back on my record clean,” he said. John is For more information, visit the streets without shelter and safety. proud of his story and how he over- centerforhumanservices.org/ New to the area, he found that being a came his situation. “I want to tell my shelter-services young adult alone in a foreign town was children one day, ‘be like me’ and not terrifying. ‘don’t be like me.’” CENTER LINE | SPRING 2019 2 HUTTON HOUSE: Jill’s Journey from Client to Staff to Mother Sometimes, in the course of our lives, we encounter a Jill’s parents took her to Hutton House the first time and person, a moment or an experience that changes our they received family counseling to learn different tools life trajectory. For 37-year-old Jill Baker, that experience to help them connect better, but it was a temporary fix. was actually a place - Hutton House, Center for Human Jill returned to Hutton House many times after that - Services’ temporary housing program in Modesto for sometimes on her own in the middle of the night; other teenagers facing homelessness or crises. times her parents or the police took her there. Between the ages of 13 and 16, Jill was in and out of “I could show up any time,” Jill said. “There are clothes, Hutton House countless times. there’s food, somebody to listen to you and give you advice. The staff there really do make you feel like they’re “I went back time and time again because it really was my there for you. They really make it personal. It’s not just one safe place and I knew that I was going to get the things layout that everybody gets.” that I needed and most desperately wanted - someone to talk to, someone to listen to me, someone to give me Hutton House Program Manager Valrie Thompson worked a set of boundaries and tell me that, not only would it get with Jill and her family 24 years ago. better, but that someday maybe my family would be more connected,” Jill recalled. “I can hear her voice in my head,” Jill reminisces, laughing to herself. “Valrie would ask me a question and I would Her parents worked many hours and were hardly ever give my smart-aleck 13-year-old remark and then she home, and her older sister moved out at 15 years old, would say, ‘Well, how’s that working out for you?’ Now it leaving Jill to fend for herself. She sought attention by totally makes sense. I use it on my kids, I use it with my using drugs and alcohol and running away from home. employees at work.” 3 CENTER LINE | SPRING 2019 After three years of stints at Hutton House, couch surfing with friends, and getting deeper into trouble, Jill’s parents and Hutton House staff knew they had to find a more permanent solution. At 16 years old, Jill moved to Oregon to live with her grandparents. She earned her high school diploma at a continuation school there and returned to California when she was 18. After 10 years in the Bay Area where she had her first daughter, Jill, her husband and her baby moved back to Modesto in 2008. She didn’t have a job, so she returned to the one place in Modesto she considered home - Hutton House, first as a volunteer, then as an employee. “It was extraordinary to come full circle and work at Hutton House,” Jill said. “So many times kids would say, ‘You don’t understand. You just work here.’ And I would giggle in my head thinking, ‘Man, I was totally you,’ and I did share a few times about my personal past as a client there to show that there is that sense of hope and things won’t always be the way you feel it is at that time.” Jill worked at Hutton House for five years, providing hope, mentorship and delicious meals to dozens of teenagers. She now manages a local restaurant, is pursuing her dream of having her own catering business, has rebuilt her relationship with her mother, and is raising three daughters. She says Hutton House saved her life and, in turn, molded her into the consistent and reliable mother she is today. I feel like both experiences - being a child there and also working there - made me a much better parent, a more resourceful parent. I know that if I’m ever in need, I “ know exactly where I can go for help, whether it’s Hutton House or Center for Human Services as a whole. For more information, visit centerforhumanservices.org/huttonhouse CENTER LINE | SPRING 2019 4 PATHWAYS: Carolyn & Celeste’s Story From Homeless to Hopeful Twin sisters Carolyn and Celeste Warren remember much of Services’ transitional living program in Modesto that their childhood in homeless shelters. provides apartments at no cost for homeless 18-24 year olds. “We went to a different shelter every week,” Celeste recalled. “Whole different place, whole different people. We went to “When I first moved in, I was so grateful,” Celeste the Mission, Hutton House, Haven of Peace in Stockton, remembers.