New shelter coming to Sarasota offers hope for more than 2,000 teens without a place to stay
SARASOTA, Fla. - A new shelter will soon offer hope to more than 2,000 teens who have no place to stay throughout Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties.
Safe Children Coalition works to help those teens from offering wrap around services to a place to stay.
Renderings of the new building, which will be along Sawyer Road, offered a view of the site. It will one day house local youth ages 10 to 17.
"This is a community shelter so the kids who are in our shelter could be your neighbor, could be my neighbor," said Jacqueline House, the vice president of communications and community engagement for Safe Children Coalition.
The community shelter will provide a safe place to children and teens.
House said the shelter provides a safe place to children and teens going through a mental health crisis or a parent’s inability to cope with an out of control child.
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"We will have an opportunity to intake those teens without their privacy being compromised and have those teens feel comfortable talking to us about their situations," she said.
The 20 bed facility will provide 3,000 safe shelter nights a year.
The Safe Children Coalition is working to make the community center a reality.
"We see for the future of this property a customized location that is specially designed to help us serve teens. It is specially designed to help us not have a waiting list for teens, to be able to serve more teens," said House.
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The Barancik Foundation offered a challenge match, which Safe Children Coalition met. It resulted in $1.5 million toward the shelter.
"When we first heard about this opportunity to build a new shelter and how critical it was and how we might be helpful, this idea of putting up a match was part of what we talked about," said John Annis the senior vice president for collaboration and impact with the Barancik Foundation.
Continued community support is needed.
"The youth shelter is for community teens. Teenagerhood is hard, and sometimes our teens need to be redirected and sometimes parents need help with that. This shelter is a community shelter, and it belongs to all of us," explained House.