From Feb 14 – Feb 20, 2008

Eliza Sohn

Sitting Targets

Sit-Lie Ordinance Takes Aim at Street Kids

BY MATT DAVIS

Portland’s controversial sit-lie ordinance appears to be targeting a distinct group of homeless youth (or "street kids"), according to the latest enforcement statistics from the mayor’s Street Access for Everyone (SAFE) committee.

It’s true that the ordinance has overwhelmingly been used to target people without a fixed address: 62 people were issued verbal sit-lie warnings between August 30 and December 28 last year, only nine of whom supplied an address to the police officer involved.

Over that same period, only 10 citations were issued under the ordinance—citations are a step up from a verbal warning, and can lead to a fine or community service. Of those, eight citations were written to people born in the 1980s.

"The behavior of many of the teenagers and young adults who spend their days on Portland streets was the impetus behind the SAFE ordinance, as many businesses were impacted by the negative impression they were giving downtown," Mike Kuykendall, Vice President of downtown services for the Portland Business Alliance (PBA) and co-chair of the SAFE committee, tells the Mercury. "So it makes sense this group is receiving a majority of the warnings and citations."

"The folks we’re really having a problem with are these Road Warrior youth," said Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese, at a meeting of the SAFE group last Thursday, February 7. "I think we have to do some kind of outreach to them. Some actually want citations so that they can challenge them in court."

One man, Correy Gene Douglas Newman, 26, has been cited three times at the corner of SW 6th and Alder—outside the Rite Aid, a well-known hangout for the kids. Newman is challenging all three of his citations in circuit court on February 20.

Meanwhile Adam Ray Kuntz, 23; Samantha Bowen, 22; and Amber Anderson, who was born in 1980 but has since died, have all been convicted and fined $347—the maximum fine allowed—for sitting in the same spot.

Their citations prompted a discussion at last Thursday’s meeting of the SAFE oversight group.

"I’m noticing that a lot of these [citations] are for people aged 25 and under," said Sean Suib, associate executive director of New Avenues for Youth (NAFY)—a nonprofit which gears its services to the street kids. "I’m wondering whether there should be some specialized service designed for these youth?"

Most of the citations in questions were written between noon and 2 pm, when NAFY is closed. NAFY does outreach from 8-10 pm on Wednesday and Thursday nights, said Suib, and Outside In, another youth-oriented service provider, offers an 8-10 pm slot on Sunday and Monday nights. But the ordinance is only in effect from 7 am to 9 pm, and the street kids are reluctant to use the day services provided by SAFE to adults.

"We’ve experienced turf issues when you get that population in there," said Marvin Mitchell, who runs the SAFE group’s adult temporary access center at the Julia West House on SW 13th and Alder.

Nevertheless, funding more day services for the street kids with SAFE money doesn’t appeal to everyone.

"There’s a perception that the youth system actually already has under-used capacity," said Marc Jolin, of homeless outreach group JOIN. "I’m skeptical as to whether any SAFE-funded project would be very appealing to these folks."

"If we build it, will they come?" asked Kuykendall.

Others speculate that the PBA would be reluctant to give more of its money to support a group of people who are often cited as blighting downtown’s image in the eyes of suburban shoppers.

"The PBA is in a difficult position," says Rene Denfeld, who wrote a controversial book about a murder among Portland’s street kids called All God’s Children, published last year. "Everybody wants to promote downtown as a place to shop, and it’s not good business to have roaming groups of street kids. I don’t think the PBA wants to acknowledge the problem, and on the other hand, they want to solve it."

Admittedly, not all the troubling citations are against youth. One woman was cited despite saying her feet were swollen from standing all day. Another was cited without a warning, coming out of Rite Aid where her friend was already being cited, while another man was asked for his identification by a guard working for the PBA’s rent-a-cop firm, Portland Patrol, Inc.—PPI guards aren’t supposed to ask for ID.

"The ordinance is something that all homeless people should be concerned about, and probably the entire city," says Patrick Nolen, community organizer for Sisters of the Road.

"But at least in terms of perception, it does seem to be targeting one segment of our population," Nolen continues.

BOLIVIA:  Dying, to Help Others Live
By Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Jan 31 (IPS) - Italian aid worker Morris Bertozzi drowned in Bolivia trying to help a local woman cross a flooded river, just as he had worked for the last 11 years helping street children in the grip of alcohol, drugs and crime cross the bridge to a new life.

Bertozzi was one more victim of the furious rivers rushing through the city of La Paz as a result of an unusually heavy rainy season attributed to the La Niña weather phenomenon.

Since the seasonal rains began two months ago, some 45 people have been killed, and crops, roads and homes have been destroyed throughout the country.

A government emergency operations centre run by the military is offering help to families left isolated by the floods.

Last Friday evening, the 36-year-old Bertozzi was swept away by a flash flood as he was trying to help a woman cross a smaller river near the Sant’Aquilina drug rehabilitation centre where he worked in the highlands district of Lipari, 25 km south of La Paz. His car was also carried off by the flood.

The next day, local residents searched for Bertozzi’s body, believing it would be in the wreck of the car, which had been carried several hundred metres downstream. But his corpse was found five km further down.

"He died helping," faithful to his principles, his wife Alejandra Costas told IPS.

Bertozzi was sent to La Paz in 1996 at the age of 25 by the Comunidad Papa Juan XXIII, a Roman Catholic organisation that helps street children, drug addicts and prostitutes in 27 countries of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

He came to Bolivia for an eight-month stint working as a volunteer in one of the group’s substance abuse rehabilitation centres.

But two children changed the direction of his life when they described to him, crying, what it was like to sleep under bridges, sift through garbage for food, and be ignored by society.

The young Italian volunteer saw the distressing stories of these two children as the call of two angels who set him on a path to help restore human dignity among street children and others without hope, said Costas.

"He started out helping, with a small bucket in his hand and a few loaves of bread," Verónica Hernaiz, administrator of the Sant’Aquilina Hogar, told IPS. The rehabilitation centre, which also offers social and labour reinsertion programmes, was built on Bertozzi’s initiative in the country’s impoverished highlands, near the river that ended up taking his life.

A deep love for Bolivia prompted Bertozzi to spearhead the founding of the Luz del Niño rehabilitation centre in the poor La Paz neighbourhood of Munaypata in 1997, and a year later the Sant’Aquilina Hogar opened its doors.

After undergoing rehabilitation, the teenage residents of the homes have the opportunity to learn how to cook Italian dishes like pizza, spaghetti and lasagne, which are served in a restaurant run by the organisation.

"Don’t forget, the poor are the children of God," was a phrase frequently repeated by Bertozzi, who was "a faithful servant of Jesus," said Hernaiz.

On the grounds of the Sant’Aquilina Hogar, lit up by bright sunlight, a rare treat after so many days of rain, the teenage residents continue their work in the stables, the pigsties and the kitchen. But there is a palpable sense of loss.

Yovana and Óscar, two adolescents who were brought in off the street, remember when the young Italian man would push through the brush surrounding the spot where they slept under a bridge in a La Paz neighbourhood, ignoring their hostility while offering hot milk and bread.

The two youngsters admitted that they at first treated the kind young blond man with distrust, but said they eventually accepted his invitation to abandon the violent world of drugs and alcohol that they inhabited.

Their time on the streets left them with scars on their arms from the self-harm they used to engage in, an increasingly common behaviour among troubled youngsters, who cut themselves, according to experts, to seek a kind of relief from unbearable psychological or emotional situations.

Óscar openly described to IPS his past on the streets, when he panhandled and robbed to survive. He said he had "several specialties" when it came to stealing.

But with a newborn baby in their arms, the young couple now envision a better future for themselves. Yovana remembers Bertozzi’s advice: "Change for the sake of your little son; the doors of this home will always be open for your recovery."

"He was a father to the poor and to the children on the streets," said Hernaiz.

Help without intermediaries 

Maxi at the home of his tutor, Mario Julio Sotelo.  Paolo Moiola

Paolo Moiola.  Jan 31, 2008

Martial arts teacher devotes his life to spending time with street children.

Commonly seen in the subway, a train station or sheltered in a doorway, there are many children who have become masters at survival in the streets, living amidst drugs, police and threatening circumstances.

Sotelo has spent time in Costa Rica and the United States, but now works as a courier and volunteers teaching martial arts to kids in the Miguel Magone Center. “In my own small way, I also try to help street kids,” he says.

Open House
“This is my humble home, only a step above the ranchada in the street,” warns Sotelo, as if to excuse it. The term ranchada refers to an improvised shelter made by street children: the place where they meet, sleep and establish their daily schedule.

I have three forks: one for me, the other for him and one for the visitor, who today is Maxi.” Maximiliano, 16, sits and listens. “I have known Maxi for years,” Sotelo continues, “but only recently has he started living with me. He helps me in my courier job.”

Independent Appeal: Bringing hope to abused children from the streets

By Andrew Gumbel in Puebla, Mexico

Published: 21 December 2007

Street children get a new life with Juconi, supported by The Independent Christmas Appeal

When the boy known as Pedro Jonathan was just eight years old, he ran away from the house he shared with his mother and stepfather in Mexico City. For a while he lived on the street, then he hopped on a bus in the hope of finding a better life elsewhere.

Pedro Jonathan had been a victim of serial abandonments – first by his father, who never participated in his life at all, then by his mother, who took off with her new man and left him in the care of his grandmother in Acapulco, and finally by the grandmother, who found him a burden and sent him back to his mother in the big city.

Pedro Jonathan doesn’t like to talk about what happened in the final few months before he ran away, but it clearly had to do with the overbearing authoritarianism of his stepfather and the sense that nobody really wanted him. Nobody took the trouble to send him to school regularly, and he never finished his first year of primary education.

Soon after he hopped on that bus, to a small provincial town called Acatlan, his young life hit rock bottom. The family he hoped would take care of him couldn’t cope with him either. A government agency took him to a shelter in Puebla, south-east of Mexico City, where he soon became involved in a nasty fight and was sent to a juvenile detention centre.

That was where he was found by Juconi, a charity specialising in rehabilitating street children which is funded by the International Children’s Trust and is one of the three charities being supported in this year’s Independent Christmas Appeal. They took him into their residential centre, gave him clothes and a bunk bed, and embarked on a painfully long process of education and therapy – essentially, taking on the multiple roles of educator, parent, psychologist and occupational therapist.

Pedro Jonathan is now 16, and the "impulsive, explosive" child of a few years ago has become much calmer. Since the beginning of the year, he has been enrolled in a public secondary school, where he enjoys playing the trumpet and has every intention of graduating in two years. He still lives in a residence run by Juconi and maintains close contact with his educators.

Ask him about any painful personal subject and his eyes will go just a little blank and his head will point down as he gives a perfunctory answer, but the happy fact is that he now has a shot at a functional sort of life where, eight years ago, he had next to none.

Juconi – short for Junto con las niñas y los niños or Together with the girls and boys – has been helping children like Pedro Jonathan for the past 18 years and pioneering techniques for rehabilitating children from the worst, most abusive backgrounds. Juconi finds many with untreated second-degree burns, or whip marks where they were beaten with electrical cord, or evidence that they were trussed and caged like animals, or appalling histories of sexual abuse.

Puebla takes in about 350 street children each year, many of whom have severed all ties with their closest relatives.

Some, like Pedro Jonathan, were fending for themselves on the streets. Others might have had a meagre living washing car windows at traffic lights, or doing fire-eating acts on street corners. Less vulnerable children, who work in and around Puebla’s main food market where their mothers have jobs, go to a drop-in centre Juconi runs near the market, and sleep at home. What they have in common is not so much poverty – although that is a common theme – as long, inter-generational histories of family violence.

At Juconi House, where Pedro Jonathan lived for close to five years, routine and order are the watchword. The children are responsible for keeping their clothes washed and tidy and spend the day shuttling between basic literacy and numeracy classes, therapy sessions, sports, practical activities and group meetings. Every child is given three sets of clothes and earn more as they gain the educators’ trust.

The attractive house, a two-storey structure built around an internal courtyard with blue and white tiles and red brick, is spotlessly clean.

Juconi’s Puebla operation’s director Alison Lane said: "We’ve deliberately created an organised, predictable environment, in contrast to the chaos of living in the streets."

Juconi has developed ways for the children – and family members who want to be involved – to express their feelings. Everyone rates themselves on a "mood thermometer" where zero means perfect happiness and 10 means sad and angry enough to burst. Those who feel overwhelmed are encouraged to work on a punch bag, use a ball in the playground or listen to music. The content of individual therapy sessions is determined entirely by the children. At some point in the process, every child will rebel – usually the sign of a turning point as rebellion is seen as an important step towards full engagement. Juconi tracks its graduates for 10 years. Ms Lane said: "We have an 80 per cent success rate which means 80 per cent of kids are off the streets and have their family around them once more."

LATIN AMERICA: Prizes for Communities Fighting Exclusion
By Darío Montero

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Dec 10 (IPS) - They work in the deep heartland of Brazil, or in urban slums. They all seek social inclusion, and their starting point is the bottom of the social ladder, with people who have a wide experience of life, contrasting with their short years.

One of these programmes, "The Four-Leaf Clover", aims to reduce maternal, perinatal and infant morbidity and mortality in Sobral, a city of 183,000 people in the impoverished northeastern state of Ceará.

This project was awarded the first prize, worth 30,000 dollars, at the Social Innovation Fair in Porto Alegre organised by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

The jury made the selection from 12 finalists out of 900 projects that had entered the competition, and said that the programme, carried out by the Secretariat of Health and Social Action in Sobral, was "technically well-designed to make the most of the community’s social energy and intervene in this important problem of infant mortality."

"The strategy was adopted in 2001 under a different government, and was appropriated by the community to such an extent that changes in the elected authorities, of whatever political persuasion, are incapable of thwarting it, even if they wanted to," the project’s first coordinator, nurse Julia Santos, told IPS.

So strongly held is her conviction that Santos, who is today just another member of "The Four-Leafed Clover", has no interest in who is actually governing, and was unable to tell IPS what party or coalition is in charge of the local government in this city, where 36 percent of the residents are poor.

"Not only has this project influenced the public agenda, it is sustainable and its impact can be measured. It also conveys an essential message about social organisation, and shows that concrete results are achievable," said Nohra Rey de Marulanda, former manager of the Department of Integration and Regional Programmes at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Rey, the spokeswoman for the jury of the Experiences of Social Innovation contest, announced the results on Friday at the Fair organised by ECLAC in a central square of Porto Alegre, the capital of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Among the achievements of the group is caring for 1,148 families last year, at a cost of 175 dollars each. Furthermore, since the project started in 2001, prenatal care indicators have improved, and the infant mortality rate has fallen from 29.7 per 1,000 live births to 16.5 per 1,000.

Santos said the contribution of civil society through the participation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), private corporations and volunteers managed to overcome one of the main hurdles, which was funding. When the project first got under way, the city government funded the entire budget, whereas now it contributes 74 percent.

But there was more than one winner. Four other projects left Porto Alegre with cash prizes of 20,000, 15,000, 10,000 and 5,000 dollars, but all 12 finalists have earned the backing of ECLAC, which enhances their credibility and calls on national and local governments to pay more attention to these social innovation projects and the public policies they propose.

The members of "Education with Street Children" (EDNICA), awarded a Special Mention at last week’s meeting, are particularly looking forward to this prestige. They work in Colonia Morelos, in the historic centre of Mexico City, and in a slum on the southside of the city.

Their work even goes beyond their own title, because they look after youngsters ranging in age from a few months to 25.

As a civil society organisation, EDNICA is independent of state bodies or political parties. "This independence has meant that we can work with whatever government is in office, whether it is rightwing, like the federal (national) government, or leftwing, as in the capital city," Rocío Morales, a young lawyer, told IPS.

But recently, the hardline policy against crime adopted by Mexican President Felipe Calderón has caused the project to "be treated with suspicion" and it is under pressure from police officers who surround their centres, Morales said.

"Street kids suffer social stigma. They are all viewed as drug dealers, and that’s not the case. Drug consumption has increased all over the country because of the sealing of the border with the United States, and street children have become the first victims in this fight against drug trafficking."

The centres are staffed with social services personnel, volunteers, and especially people from the local community.

The Morelos centre works with 80 children and young people who live on the streets, and another 150 who come in on a daily basis and receive specific support for their formal education studies, and efforts are made to convince their parents to take them out of the labour market, in return for a grant to compensate them for lost income.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Education Centre in Colonia Ajusco, in the south of the city, only looks after working children, of whom there are already 230.

EDNICA is part of the Child Rights Network, which is made up of 53 Mexican NGOs that had a good rapport with the government of former President Vicente Fox (2000-2006). But now, according to Morales, Calderón has sidelined them. On the other hand, cooperation with agencies of the local government of Mexico City continues to be positive, the activist said.

"But even within the Mexico City government, proposals are being made to ‘clean up’ the historic centre and remove the street kids from the area, because it’s a tourist attraction and it should look nice," she complained. Such policies are often expressions of "social cleansing", and violate the children’s human rights, she said.

RIGHTS: For Some, Childhood Is Rubbish
By Sabina Zaccaro

Credit:Sabina Zaccaro At the Guatemala dump

Independent Appeal: Breaking the cycle of abuse in Ecuador

By Andrew Gumbel

Published: 07 December 2007

In 2005 he joined volunteers from the city’s Hilton Church on a work party at two boys’ homes in Peru, Puerto Alegria in the Amazonian rain forest and Kusi high up in the Andes. Two years later, he now works full time for the small Scottish charity which organised that trip, The Vine Trust.

"One of my friends and I did a bit of travelling in South America and as part of that we just went along for a couple of weeks," he explained.

"I got back home and got an IT job, but didn’t especially like it, so I phoned Willy MacPherson, my current boss, and asked if there were any opportunities and here I am today."

Calum spends around two or three months of each year in Peru, but also has a lot to do back home in the trust’s Scottish headquarters — previously the director’s garage in Port Seaton near Edinburgh.

"We work very closely with an organisation in Peru, Scripture Union Peru. In this country it’s just four of us, but because of that it is quite varied," Calum said.

"I’ll go into schools and speak about the work, organise trips for people — this year we have had over 300 go over to Peru — I’ll organise training for groups going to Peru, itineraries while they are there, I do some stuff with the website and I do things with the media."

He was also in Peru recently to co-ordinate filming on the follow up to STV’s documentary series about The Vine Trust screened earlier this year. The second series will be broadcast in February.

"The other week we were going over the Andes with a little medical ship," he added, pointing out that it took five days to drive the boat on the back of a lorry to the edge of the rainforest before it began its five-day voyage to Iquitos, the capital of Peruvian Amazonia.

There it will join the two existing ships and a medical clinic funded by the charity which already treats around 52,000 patients a year.

Medical volunteers from the UK will help out with these clinics, but work teams like the Hilton group, medical teams and even school groups, which combine work with education to examine issues of poverty and globalisation, will also get involved in helping the Trust’s street children projects. By the end of next year there will be eight residential homes hosting around 40 boys, as well as a number of day centres and night centres offering refuge for Peru’s street children.

"The hope is the whole project will eventually become self-sustainable," he explained.

"We are setting up micro enterprise projects, for example a bakery, a taxi business, a rickshaw business and a car park business. They can help some of the former street boys, which is very important because there is a lot of social stigma against them which means it’s hard for them to get training or employment in the future. That also raises revenue so the project will become fully self-sustaining."

A party of 35 Highland volunteers led by members of Hilton Church and their friends recently paid a return visit to Puerto Alegria and Kusi, further strengthening the links they established in 2005. They included Raigmore eye surgeon Iain Whyte, who performed several operations, builders from city construction company Tulloch and a range of other occupations from plumbers to hoteliers.

"There are a number of groups that go out more than once," Calum added.

"There are very strong links with Inverness through Hilton Church and other groups and we’re very grateful for what they have done. They have also done a lot of fundraising as well. The team has raised £30,000 for the work. That will fund a home centre for a year."

The Inverness party included a number of family groups, such as Highland Hospice medical director Stephen Hutchison, his wife Ingrid and daughter Fiona (16).

It was actually the second time members of the Henderson family had visited Peru. Two years ago Stephen had visited with his son Iain and older daughter Karen.

Stephen, who has one other daughter Ruth who is yet to make the trip, commented: "It was certainly nice to do something as a family on each occasion and nice to have each other’s support while we were there, but it wasn’t, in a sense, as important as being part of a larger group because the group bonded together well.

"The homes are fairly remote. One of them is almost an hour’s journey in a banana boat from Iquitos, which is itself fairly remote. You can only get to it by boat or plane and Puerto Alegria is up river from there."

He continued: "There were a whole variety of jobs, from bricklaying and various electrical and plumbing things that the various workmen did, but as a far as my family were concerned, we were just being labourers, I suppose."

Stephen had another function as team doctor, though fortunately had only a few minor ailments to deal with despite the arduous conditions faced by the Highland workers.

"Puerto Alegria, is extremely hot and humid. You get really, really sweaty and dirty — it’s incredible. It’s the dirtiest I have ever been in my life," Stephen remembered.

The local children’s football team enjoy their ICT strips. Right: Calum Munro

"In Kusi, you don’t get quite so hot because you’re up in the mountains. It’s a much drier heat, so it’s not quite so unpleasant in that respect."

Fiona also had another job, along with the other youngsters of the party, in making friends with the boys at the two homes, despite the visitors’ difficulties with the language.

"It turned into a little bit of a joke with them, trying to say things and them not understanding," she said.

"The younger ones would be quite cuddly and generally wanting to come up and listen to things like iPods. The older ones would play table football and proper football. So there was plenty to do."

Friendships have been formed with the boys, but Fiona will also take some important lessons away from her Peruvian experience.

"To see how poor things can get has been quite shocking really and just to see how nice and lovely people can be.

"The culture there is to treat the street boys like dirt, but this lets you see what fantastically lovely people they are," she said. "I definitely want to go back. I’m already planning my next trip there."

Scott MacRoberts of Milton of Leys, Highlands and Islands regional worker for Scripture Union, also believes his visit will have a lasting impact.

"The boys had obviously been through hell, but in many ways they were the fortunate ones and it was a happy thing to see them having a second chance in life," he said.

"It would be fair to say we felt we gained more in many ways than we were able to contribute. Having said that, we did get a lot of physical work done. We’ve had our horizons broadened and we’ve learned a lot about what goes on in the world."

Angus MacLeod, a Gaelic development officer, said the Hilton visitors had succeeded in introducing some Highland culture to Peru.

The boys were presented with some penny whistles, donated by Highland music tuition organisation Feisan nan Gaidheal, while Caley Thistle may also have picked up some new fans with the donation of a number of strips.

"Some of them were very keen on dance and choreography and we ended up doing the Gay Gordons with them," Angus said with a laugh.

As well as helping construct new buildings in Puerto Alegria and learning to make bricks the old fashioned way from bricks and straw in Kusi, Angus also had some very close encounters with Peruvian wildlife.

"I went to the bathroom in the morning and there was this big-eyed frog looking up at me," he laughed.

"Then where we were eating, some of the boys turned over one of the benches and found a tarantula having a kip!"

More seriously, he added: "Before we went over we didn’t know what difference we could make, but I think just the fact that we are willing to help and are doing something to raise the profile of issues over there is important.

"It certainly makes me appreciate what I’ve got."

Respite from streets

S.L. center for youths treats homeless to an early feast
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
Published: Thursday, Nov. 22, 2007 12:09 a.m. MST

Katt has a saying: "Concrete flows thicker than blood or water any day of the week." By blood, of course, she means the people she’s related to, who by and large haven’t been very reliable. As for the concrete, she’s talking about the street. And by street, she means the sidewalks and the public plazas and the abandoned buildings that house Salt Lake City’s homeless young people.

If you live on the street, say the kids who do, other street kids are your family. So it was fitting, on the eve of the most traditional of family holidays, that Katt and her friends shared a Thanksgiving meal Wednesday afternoon at the Homeless Youth Resource Center on State Street.

Dinner was served at 4 p.m. so that the last of the pies would be gone and the chores done before everybody was shooed out the door at 7. Because of funding problems, the Homeless Youth Resource Center is only open for eight daytime hours; after that it’s back to the street, maybe to go couch surfing at the apartment of a friend of a friend, maybe to squat in a boarded-up warehouse, maybe to walk around all night, high on meth, trying to keep warm.

Official average age of those who gather each day at the center is 19 or 20, says Zachary Bale, director of outreach services for Volunteers of America, which runs the center. Some of the kids may be younger but lie about their age for fear of being reported to the Division of Child and Family Services, he says.

You don’t "age out" of the center until you’re 23. The "youth" in the center’s name refers to development and education levels more than mere chronology, Bale explains. Some of the homeless at the center have addictions and mental-health issues, some are the product of unstable upbringings. Hardly any are the kind of bohemian street kids you might find in Seattle or Portland, rich kids just trying to be street kids, Bale says.

Some have run away from abusive or strict or neglectful families. Some have aged out of the foster-care system and don’t know what to do next. And, frankly, some think the world owes them something, says a 21-year-old named Cara. "It’s ’screw you, give me free stuff,"’ she says. "That’s harsh, but I was exactly the same way."

Cara is sitting in one of the back rooms of the center, near a poster of the young James Dean, another rebel without a cause. On the street, says Cara, the mindset is, "If you don’t have to" — pay bills, follow rules, do a 9 to 5 job — "why do it?"

Cara says she’s had enough of that, though. Now, she says, she wants to settle down with her boyfriend and raise the baby that’s due next spring. Like other street kids who have moved on to living quarters with an actual address, she credits the Homeless Youth Resource Center with helping her learn to budget her money and maintain an apartment.

"They give you every skill you need to come out prosperous," says a 23-year-old named "Detour," who has aged out of the center but comes back for case management. Detour grew up with parents who were drug addicts. From age 6 to 9 he lived in a series of rundown downtown hotels and was sent out to panhandle during the day. After that it was a series of foster families. At 18 he started coming to the center.

"Once you’ve been on the street," says Katt, who has lived on her own starting at age 12 and is now 22, "it’s 10 times harder to keep a job." It’s a kind of cycle, sort of like drug abuse, she says. You start to climb out and then you slip back in. "If you haven’t grown up with what’s basic for society, then you don’t know how to do it."

For Thanksgiving today, Detour plans to cook a dinner for maybe 15 or 20 street kids and former street kids at his new apartment. "There will be two turkeys, all your vegetables pretty much, spaghetti, ham," he says. But no one has ever taught him the safety tips for thawing a 12-pound bird. The turkeys are in the bathtub, he says. Not in cold water, just in the bathtub, and have been since Tuesday.

Katt, too, will cook her first Thanksgiving dinner today, in the apartment she shares with her husband and baby. On Wednesday, the toddler was at the Resource Center gleefully twirling the glass disc in the microwave. Katt doesn’t bring him to the center very often though, she says. "I don’t want him to grow up thinking this lifestyle is something he wants to do."