Youth shelter in Wooster Square is important for my patients and my neighborhood

As a pediatrician, I am impressed by of the resilience of young people. I often see kids in the exam room who are excelling in school and participating in extracurricular activities, yet I hear later in the visit that they have been traumatized by gun violence or that their families struggle with food insecurity. Young people facing these vulnerabilities are all around us: in our schools, on our playgrounds, in our neighborhoods. They just cover it up artfully.

Instability in housing is one of the most critical vulnerabilities young people face. Homelessness can expose them — despite their resilience — to violence, substance use, and other illnesses. As a Wooster Square resident, I was struck by recent discussions among my neighbors who oppose adding 20 shelter beds to the Youth Continuum facility on Grand Avenue, a block from my home. I feel that adding the beds would be a small but important step toward addressing New Haven’s unstably housed youth, who amount to over 700 individuals.

Those opposing are concerned Wooster Square’s stretch of Grand Avenue is becoming more of a social services center than a commercial or residential center. The irony, however, is that the children who would benefit from Youth Continuum’s proposal are caught between these two categories: they do not meet the federal definition of homelessness (and therefore receive little or no housing services) and yet they do not have stable residence. In all their resilience, these children skillfully spend a night here and a night there to get by, often invisible to detection.

Although bringing these services into our neighborhood can cause concerns and fears in the short term, it may lead to a longer-term solution to some of these concerns. Large research studies over many years have shown that youth experiencing homelessness are likely to become the next generation of chronically homeless adults without appropriate intervention. Providing housing, however, allows youth to focus on the developmental milestones of adolescence — growing intellectually and building healthy relationships — to help break this cycle. It’s not a question of whether we want these young people here, because they already are here (in our neighborhoods generally, at the Youth Continuum facility on Grand Avenue specifically): it’s a question of proactively supporting them as a neighborhood.

I am proud of Wooster Square’s long history of welcoming vulnerable populations from many backgrounds. Mutual support and diversity make our neighborhood strong. I support adding a residential component to Youth Continuum. My neighbors’ and my patients’ lives would be enhanced by this addition to our community.