Seeing, helping homeless youths

What if you don’t look away? Sometimes, good change happens.

In December 2023, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s homelessness assessment identified an estimated 653,100 individuals who, on a single night, were either unhoused or housed in shelters and the like. More than 186,000 were in families with children, while almost 35,000 experienced homelessness alone, without family, while still kids themselves.

You may not be aware of these youths sleeping under bridges or in doorways, living in their cars or cheap hotels. In the mid-aughts, Florida resident Vicki Sokolik wasn’t aware of them, either.

Her incentive changed after encountering “unaccompanied homeless youth,” those younger than 25, not living with a parent or guardian and lacking safe, stable housing. In “If You See Them,” Sokolik writes how she went from “searching for meaning” to making a difference, founding

■ by Vicki Sokolik ■ Spiegel & Grau, 337 pages, $30 a nonprofit that has helped hundreds of homeless youth by providing the resources, advocacy and care they need to learn to succeed independently.

Like Sokolik, who exhibits a boundless, indomitable determination, her book tries to do it all, acting as public policy primer, introspective autobiography and nonprofit origin story, while introducing around 10 kids who benefited from “Starting Right, Now” (SRN), the organization she founded to help 15- to 19-year-olds in west central Florida.

Sokolik’s earliest actions were solo. When she tells her husband she paid the deposit on an apartment for people she only recently met, he responds: “I think you’ve lost your mind.” He comes around, and Sokolik enlists big guns like Tampa’s mayor and the Tampa Bay Rays’ president, one of her cousins. By 2012, SRN is up and running, fielding referrals from schools. SRN pays for standardized tests, clothes, food, medical care, proms and a prize-winning pig, but its most valuable resource is relentless support.

These aren’t “rebellious teenagers who leave home because they don’t like the rules,” but traumatized kids who grew up in nightmarish circumstances. Not every child wants help, and not every story is a success.

We can’t all emulate Sokolik, but her example should motivate us not only to see these folks, but to help them if we can.

McBride

Midtown food hall Politan Row at Colony Square will soon be home to its first Cuban concept.

Don Fausto’s will open Monday in the space previously home to Locale Caribbean.

Don Fausto’s, which has operated as a food truck for 18 months, comes from the father and son team of Joel and Noah Diaz. The pair, inspired by former Atlanta Cuban restaurant Kool Korner, offer dishes including Cuban sandwiches with vegetarian and “Tampa” versions, croquetas, empanadas, Cuban smashburger, ropa vieja, chicken wings with sauce options like jerk and mango tamarind and weekend specials such as enchilado de langosta, a Creole dish made with lobster, peppers, tomatoes, garlic and onions.

Cuban sandwiches are on the menu at Don Fausto’s, which opens Monday.

NONFICTION