In other news, a new transitional living space on Madison's north side would house young
adults that have aged out of foster care, a population at high risk for homelessness.
The program is part of the Urban Triage Unhoused Youth Initiative and is the first of its kind
in Wisconsin. CEO of Urban Triage, Brandi Grayson joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.
You're so welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It's a long time seeing you. We'll be in on your
show then. So this would be for 18 to 21 year olds. What are the needs of these young adults who
have aged out of the foster system? Well, you know, when we have youth aging out of systems,
they're usually without parents, families or supports. So the needs are a lot. A lot of them
still need support with developing the readiness skills to be on their own, whether it's financial
planning, learning how to negotiate a lease, what it means to be a tenant, tenant rights,
how to budget, how to enroll in school, how to navigate systems, and really how to deal with
the trauma of being in a system, feeling abandoned, and not having supports and services. I would say
that's the biggest one is actually the trauma in supporting youth with just learning the tools
and the skills to navigate the emotional impact of being alone in the world. Yeah. So given that
this would be the first of its kind in Wisconsin for this kind of living space, are those needs
that you just described currently being met in the state? I don't know about the state. I haven't
done much research, but I would say no. There are programs that have resources for folks who are
aging out of foster care, but not enough, right? So it's kind of like, let us give you a tote full
of dishes and, you know, essentials, but there's no peer peer support or navigation support. There's
no rental assistance. There's no case management. There's no mental health services attached to
that. You, like everyone else in our community, really are forced to piece together supports by
going to different organizations, which then leads to trauma, which then leads to hopelessness,
which leads to homelessness and leads to all kind of desperate acts on the side of youth.
So we were talking about that, that high risk for homelessness. What are the outcomes for young
adults if they're not having these kinds of needs met as you describe? How do they go from,
you know, being in a foster care situation to homelessness? I mean, you, I mean, most 18
year olds today aren't ready to be on their own, right? I mean, I have young adults, children,
and they live with me until they were 20 something or they went over to college and they still required
support, financial, emotional, and mental support. So we have young folks aging out with none of that,
right? So I guess, I don't know how to answer that really because it's so, it's so traumatic for
them, right? So it's like so many layers. And if you don't have your basic needs being met,
you automatically become subject to sex trafficking, drug use, gambling, having sex with people just
to have a home or, you know, putting yourself in situations that are dangerous because you're
just trying to survive. Desperate times require desperate measures. And that's really what
youth respond to, right? Criminal activities and such that they're forced to do because
they have no resources. They have no home. They have no food, those kinds of things.
So this is described again as a transitional living space. What can people who come to
live their expect in terms of what they'll see there? Yeah, a lot of support, right? So we'll have
overnight support and that person will act as a mentor to the youth that's in the home. We will
have peer support specialists come in during the day. We'll have navigation support specialists,
housing folks come in during the day. So it'll be fully staffed during the day. And then we'll do
what we call our supporting healthy families work group, which is the trauma recovery,
supporting folks in developing the personal leadership and personal development skills to
navigate systems, helping them build the analysis of systems and really help them detach from the
feelings of inferiority or feeling like they're to blame for their situation as a young person.
And then we'll connect them to job placement readiness programs and we'll place them in permanent
housing with rental assistance once they're ready to move on on their own. So they could
expect holistic support. How many people do you expect to move in and when does it open?
Well, the house is like 12 bedrooms. We found that there's some issues on the third floor that
has to be mitigated. So we're limited now to bedroom. So I think we're going to start with five youth
and hopefully the third floor will be open up soon. Our contract is effective with Dane County
April 1. So that's when we actually begin to do the work. We'll start the first 30 days with
designing the house, you know, renovating it. And then the next 30 days recruiting for
staff and then hopefully by the third of fourth month, 120 days into the contract,
we can start enrolling youth into the program. That is great news. Brandy Grayson, thanks very
much and thanks for your work. You're so welcome. Thank you. For more on this and other shoes facing
Wisconsin, visit our website at pbswisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That's our program
for tonight. I'm Frederica Freibert. Have a good weekend.
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