While a night of sleeping under the stars might sound idyllic, it’s a daily reality for some of the area’s homeless youth. Now Capital City Youth Services is working to address that through a sleep out Thursday.
During the sleep out community members including commissioners and educators will spend the night sleeping at the CCYS campus, with no roof over their heads. The goal is to raise awareness as well as money for the organization’s street outreach program. Bintu Njie is a spokeswoman for the organization.
“We ride out, we go to homeless camps, we go to places where we could reach homeless youth. We try to build trust and relationships with them so we can provide services,” Njie says.
Njie says services available at the drop in center include computers youth can use to apply for jobs or to complete school work, a food and clothing bank, and other basic need services. She says about 870 Leon County students are considered homeless.
“How we define it is just someone who doesn’t have a home so whether you’re couch surfing whether you’re staying at a family’s house, if you don’t have a stable living situation and you don’t necessarily know where you’re going to be tomorrow, next week or next month, we consider that homelessness,” Njie says.
Everyone is welcome to join the group Thursday on the CCYS campus for a dinner and conversation on homelessness starting at 7:00.
