QPID’s 5 Days Campaign 2020
Next week QPID will be out at University and Union to raise awareness for youth homelessness in Kingston and fundraise for the Kingston Youth Shelter!
Youth homelessness in Kingston is a growing problem, where 1 in 3 people facing homelessness are youth. Over 50% of the youth facing homelessness are female, and over a third are part of marginalized communities. It is helpful when these youth have services to ensure they stay on track with education, help find employment, and address concerns about finances, mental health, or living on their own. Many youth facing homelessness will have a higher ACE (adverse childhood experiences) score, a score that measures childhood trauma. A high ACE score increases risk of many chronic diseases and toxic stress. Homelessness and housing instability can contribute further to the impact a high ACE score can have on someone. It is important to provide youth with stable housing and a stable support system to allow them to build resilience, which is exactly what the Kingston Youth Shelter works towards.
The Youth Homeless Shelter is located in Kingston and helps over 200 youth per year through a variety of services. Many of these youth are facing homelessness due to family conflict, poverty, trauma, abuse, oppression, immigration, mental health, (dis)ability, addictions, or conflict with the law. The Youth Shelter is focused on teaching youth the skills they need to live independantly until adulthood or to help them work towards repairing relationships. To do this, the youth shelter provides living arrangements at 2 locations, community, classes and support, as well as family mediation.
5 Days, a campaign run by QPID each year, has previously raised over $10,000 for the Youth Homeless Shelter. QPID members will be outside at University and Union from Sunday evening March 1st until Friday morning March 6th. We are welcome to answer any questions you may have about homelessness in Kingston or the Youth Shelter, and we would love to accept any donations you are able to offer. We hope our presence
If you want to come out to learn more about the campaign and help us break the cycle of homelessness look out for the orange shirts at U&U from March 1st-6th!
Read more about the Youth Shelter here: https://kingstonyouthshelter.org/about/
Read more about youth Homelessness in Kingston here: https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news/report-finds-disproportionate-number-of-homeless-youth-are-female
Read more about the ACE score here: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/index.html