Emergency warming shelter opens for homeless youth in Monterey

Community Human Services opened a temporary emergency warming shelter Thursday for homeless and at-risk youth in downtown Monterey Thursday night.

The shelter is inside Safe Place at 590 Pearl Street.

“We have the capacity for up to 12 youths. It’s a first-come first-served basis. We’ll be able to provide dinner for them and also a snack the next morning,” said Safe Place program officer Shirley Millico.

The shelter will be open from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. on rainy nights and nights when the temperatures dip below 45 degrees for those between 18 and 24 years old.

“The two monitors will be awake all night so they’ll be checking in on them. Males will be in one room and females will be in another so they are kept separate,” said Millico.

Officials with Community Human Services said last year 270 homeless youth were left in the cold in Monterey County.

“Homeless teens are very vulnerable, especially those living on the street,” said Community Human Services CEO, Robin McCrae.

McCrae saidthe problem isgetting worse. Since the 2008 economic downturn homelessness among teens has been rising.

“There are several factors that contribute to them becoming homeless. For youth it’s often extreme family conflict, bad relationship with step-parent, substance abuse or mental illness in the family, pregnancy and often rejection of the child because of their gender identity or sexual identity,” said McCrae.

But thanks to Safe Place, at least they’ll have a warm bed to sleep in when the weather gets dangerous.

“The primary goal is just to get them out of the rain and cold and so this is going to be really a nice place for them to do that,” said Millico.