An area agency is giving some young people a place to hang out on their way from being homeless to being successful.
The Horizon House on Elder Avenue in Akron will have four women ages 18 to 22 and a resident assistant. Participants are required to have a job or be in college, or both, and pay 30 percent of their income as rent — a bargain for most.
The rent money goes into a savings account and is returned to the women when they leave the program after two years.
Housing is only part of the deal. They also learn life skills.
Ohio Multi-County Development Corp., a nonprofit, has three other homes like the Elder Avenue residence.
“What we are trying to treat here is homelessness,” Joseph Scalise, housing coordinator, said. “There’s no substance abuse issues; there’s no drug treatment going on; there is no mental health treatment going on.
“It’s about providing a supportive environment to young people 18 to 22 who are homeless,” he said. “Our initial idea for this are kids aging out of CSB. They turn 18, and the law says, ‘Hey, you gotta leave the only home you’ve ever known. You are now on your own because you are an adult.’ And we knew that a lot of those kids were still disadvantaged, still a victims of circumstance.”
Holly Beach, 21 is a graduate of a Horizon House. She attended the Elder Avenue open house to tell her story.
“I became homeless when my foster parents asked me to find somewhere else to stay” she said. She went into foster care because her father died when she was 13 and her mother was declared incompetent.
After completing her two years in the program, she is a resident assistant at the home on Cuyahoga Street.
That job will include sharing some lessons that a parent might provide but often go missing for foster children, such as how to handle money, find a bus line, apply for a school loan or buy the right kind of car. If Beach doesn’t know the answers, her job is to direct the residents to where they can find them.
Scalise said participants are carefully selected.
“When we recruit for this program, we are recruiting for people that we think can meet the expectations of the program,” he said. If they have problems like drug abuse, mental illness or a history of violence, the organization finds other places to put them.
“We are not looking to put little frat houses around,” he said. “We are designed for achievement. We are looking for motivated young men or women who really have their stuff together.”
Beach fits that description. She is studying to be a social worker at the University of Akron and wants to pursue a law degree after that.
Krystan Sampson, 19, has her own story. She became homeless when her mother kicked her out of the house. She stayed at the Haven of Rest until being accepted for Horizon House.
Sampson wants to be a meteorologist, but not the kind you see on television.
“I want to be the person behind, putting up all the maps and that, and figuring out where the storms are coming,” she said. “I don’t want to be in front of the camera.”
Ohio Multi-County Development Corp. has four homes, serving 16 residents, but the need is not totally met. The group estimates Summit County has 300 homeless between the ages of 18 and 22.
The program, which began in 2006, is funded by a $202,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and $102,000 in local matching donations.
For more information, go to www.omcdc.org/
Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com
