Breakfast with the Relatives Brennon D. Graham

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. What an honor it is for me to stand before you to speak about an organization whose mission and work are not only critical to this community, but make a lasting impact on the lives of our youth. I'm proud to have the honor to serve as the Executive Director of The Relatives. I'm proud to say that I help young people every day find a safe place when they have nowhere else to turn. I'm proud to say that I help young people who have been left to fend for themselves find a safe path in their lives. These 7 years that I've been with the relatives have been truly life-changing for me. I've seen young people experience situations that most adults would never, ever be able to handle, and situations that many young kids should never, ever have to face. Situations like Aaron, a young man who was adopted at the age of 14 only to be given back like a package marked return to sender, and then to be bounced around from foster home to foster home, and then they wonder why he keeps running away. Or Robin, who against all that she firmly believed, traded her body to strangers just to have a warm place to sleep at night. When I think of those situations and then realize that there are literally hundreds more just like that right here in our community, I shudder at the fact that we are a community right in the middle of a crisis, a life-and-death crisis, and we just don't realize it. At The Relatives, our mission is to keep kids safe, families together, and help young people become successful adults. It's a very simple mission, but one that carries a great responsibility. For the past 38 years, our organization has continued to work to meet that responsibility head-on. In the past year, we opened our doors to more than 3,000 people, providing shelter and crisis services to more than 2,400 youth and families, assisting nearly 400 people in our On-Ramp program, helping those emerging adults find housing, necessary job skills, and work towards education goals. And housing former foster youth, helping them not only catch up, but get ahead in their life's journey. See, sometimes matters of life and death seem less obvious. If there's no gun, knife, vehicle, or speeding vehicle, or an ambulance, or news coverage, we really aren't very aware. Even for us who work in this arena every day, we sometimes don't realize how massive this crisis really is. But every year, the need for our services gets greater and greater. When we opened the Honorment Program, we knew that there was a tremendous need for a service to help youth transition to be successful adults. But I continue to be amazed by the sheer number of homeless, disconnected, unprepared youth in this community, many of whom face the daily challenge of basic survival. I'm not sure you all heard me earlier, But OnRamp, a program that started nearly 3 years ago to serve 12 youth, 12 youth a year, helped nearly 400 last year. When that many kids in our community need help, it really screams crisis. When more than one-third of the kids who sought help at OnRamp had to find housing at the Salvation Army or the men's shelter, or when more than 60% of those kids have already been arrested, when more than 47% of the kids we serve, male and female, have disclosed that they have had to trade sex for a place to sleep or for food to eat? That screams crisis, life-and-death crisis. See, we often look at these kids hanging out around the transit center or in the streets and say, oh, there's trouble, or, why should we care? They don't. But when our young people who already don't have stable families or support systems to fall back on, and not at all prepared to be on their own, and often have to make the choice to steal or go hungry, Or have to fight to keep someone from stealing a garbage bag filled with all of their clothes, and they honestly believe that this is all that the world has for them, it's a life-or-death crisis. It really is. Labor reports state that the unemployment rate for young people of 16 to 24 years old is 17.1%, twice that of Americans over 25. But for kids like Darryl, whose number one priority is hoping that the men's shelter has space tonight, Or Jordan, who's praying that she'll be able to stay a few more days in her foster home after she turns 18. Employment is a distant dream. Kids like Amanda, a 15-year-old whose mother put her out on the street to survive on her own, you know, they're behind the mark, but the expectation is that she becomes successful. Think of Maslow's hierarchy. Until the basic need of safety is addressed, nothing else even matters. So many of our kids are in real danger today. National reports state that there are 1.8 million homeless youth in America. 1.8 million. Nearly 40% of those have been in foster care within the past 3 years. Reports say that 1 in 4 foster youth will be incarcerated within the first 2 years of aging out. Now, let's look at that. The cost of incarcerating a person in North Carolina is $28,214 per person per year. We put more resources, significantly more resources into jailing our kids rather than preparing them for success. We literally spend fortunes to punish for criminal violations that could likely be prevented with providing support and helping young people prepare for their success. Nearly $30,000 per year for jail, $750 per person last year for OnRamp, plus enrollment in education programs, increases in employment and job skills, Safe housing, and the development of critical support systems, all of which are shown to reduce criminal activity, and all of which will establish promising futures, as opposed to the absolute zero outcomes you get from jail. We have to continue to provide our youth with true options that will help them succeed, help them be productive citizens. When I think of what we do at OnRamp and all of our programs at The Relatives, and how important they are to the community, I think of a young lady named Patrice. Patrice had lived in 5 foster homes since she was 12, and then at 18, she had nowhere else to go. She and her father— excuse me, she and her foster mother didn't get along, and of course, Patrice wasn't necessarily the perfect angel, so everyone was pretty excited about her aging out. But after turning 18, she packed her clothes in a black garbage bag, tucked a few bus passes in her pocket, and rode around on a bus all day until she landed at the transit center. And she was wondering how she was going to make it. See, for young ladies like Patrisse— alone, desperate, scared, broke— you don't stay on the street alone for very long. And sure enough, less than one week later, she met a friend, and he agreed to take care of her. 3 weeks later, she was arrested for prostitution. After a couple of years of trying to make it on her own, a friend told her about OnRamp. She came to the resource center very guarded and skeptical, but desperate to make it on her own, desperate to be successful, desperate to change her life. She and staff structured a plan for her future, and we worked with community partners to help her find a safe place to stay. And then we continued working with teaching and guiding and supporting her. She participated in our workshops and actually became a leader among her peers. Our staff supported her through every step of implementing her futures plan, and now she needed a job. But because of her criminal background, it was very, very difficult for her to have one. So staff stepped in and advocated for her with potential employers, and finally she was able to find a good job. It wasn't easy, but she did it. And after saving enough money, she secretly got an apartment on her own, And then came to the resource center to show off the keys to her new home. It's been a year now, and Patrice is still employed, and she's hoping to turn her job into a career. She still has her apartment, and she's hoping to upgrade to a 2-bedroom. See, with a little support, she has pushed those closed doors open to see a lasting and bright future. So, who's going to stand up for these kids? Who's going to reopen the doors that have long since been closed? When you hear about the number of young homeless people in the community, and the number of arrests, and the increasing numbers of youth who've been killed, you'll see that most of these aren't all new faces. These are some of the same kids who've been cycled through the systems most of their lives. In my 17 years of doing this work, I've seen many of them grow up. For years, our systems have been doing the same things and blindly ignoring the fact that we are failing many of our kids. They're destined to— Be homeless, or be in prison, exploited, or even death. At The Relatives, we've made a decision to stand against the status quo. Nobody else in this community is doing the work that we do for these kids. And through innovative programs and best practice approaches like OnRamp and Journey Place, The Relatives is committed to ending that cycle. We believe there can be an end to youth homelessness. We believe that young people can grow up prepared and with the optimism that prepares them to be successful. When so many doors have been closed for too many young people in this community, I'm relieved to know that with your help, the relatives will be here during those moments of need to open doors to lasting success and to promising futures. Thank you all for being here. Thank you. Thank you.