New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Pandemic boosts success of app for homeless youth
NEW HAVEN — The coronavirus pandemic has hurt many institutions , but an app-based program to help young people experiencing homelessness is thriving in these times, as it sidesteps obstacles such as public transportation and public spaces.
“It’s pretty great. …We’ve found a higher participation rate” since the pandemic, said Marina Marmolego, co-founder of the program, DreamKit. “I totally see this being our permanent model moving forward.”
In non-COVID times the app system was used, but most events were in person, requiring transportation and scheduling.
The program, for youth ages 18-25, works like this: participants connect with virtual resources for education, employment opportunity and more, then are rewarded with $5 gift cards — up to $50 per week — to buy food, toiletries or whatever they need. They even get points toward gift cards for meeting with their case managers.
The youths share their progress with the community and build profiles that reflect their progress, to be shared with employers, landlords and mentors.
DreamKit can be used anytime, and most youths have access to a cellphone or computer, Marmolego said.
Client Tajha Gray, who is unemployed and has a one-year-old child, said DreamKit “is very useful and easy to use also convenient.”
With the gift cards earned through virtual activities, she has purchased hygiene supplies, as well as baby products including clothes, diapers and wipes. Gray said she now is living with her mother in a dangerous neighborhood and looking for housing.
Clients often are referred to DreamKit through the system that kicks in when a youth facing homelessness calls 2-1-1 for help.
Marmolego, who graduated from the Yale School of Public Health in 2019, took a class in homelessness during undergraduate school at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The class showed homelessness from a public health and policy perspective.
“It helped me gain a better understanding of how intricate” homelessness is, she said. Students even attempted to experience homelessness on skid row in L.A.
“I realized I wanted to work” in the homelessness field, she said. “There were too many broken systems for me to turn a blind eye.”
Marmolego said she never experienced homelessness growing up, “but I was definitely low income.”
“In a way you can’t really teach someone the survival mode mentality. You just know yourself at the end of the day when you worried about your next meal,” she said. “We’re all closer to homelessness than we think.”
Marmolego said homelessness, including among youths, is a far more complex than “people being lazy or making bad decisions.” Homelessness can be a product of racism, as well as homophobia, as LBGTQ youths sometimes are kicked out of their
home.
“Young people have this deep-seated resilience,” Marmolego said. “They haven’t been beaten down by the system. They’re still curious about life down the road.”
DreamKit is funded through grants and donations. Moving forward, the organization is looking to partner with larger employers such as Walgreens, Walmart and Amazon, she said.