News
Page 8
Street Roots • Aug. 10-16, 2018
neighbors
A n intergenerational setting
supports youths as they transition
out o f foster care into adulthood
BY LIBBY DOWSETT
STAFF WRITER
X T ou might think senior citizens would shudder
V at the thought of a throng of teenagers and
20-somethings moving in down the block, but
the so-called “elders” at the Bridge Meadows
affordable housing community in North Portland are
welcoming them with open arms.
“I just want to offer them love,” said elder Patty
Juravic, as shersat outside the Bridge Meadows
during a recent “Happiness Hour.”
Happiness Hour is a weekly event in the Bridge
Meadows central gathering room, where the seniors
mingle with their younger neighbors who adopted
through the foster system.
“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you...”
sang the residents on a recent Wednesday afternoon
to recognize that month’s birthdays. One of the -
elders who works in the kitchen helped serve cake
as excited children ran in and out of the room.
But beginning this week, things are changing at
Bridge Meadows, which opened it’s doors in 2011.
The community is making room for at least 15 new
faces - all foster youth who are transitioning out of
the foster care system. This intentional community,
with support and outreach services for foster youths,
is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.
The first to move in, 20-year-old Zahra, just
finished settling into an apartment at the newly-
constructed Dorothy Lemelson House, on North
Dana Avenue, just one block from Bridge Meadows,
where the elders and young families reside.
“I fell completely in love when I first saw it,” said
Zahra, a third-year student at Portland Community
College.
The Dorothy Lemelson House is home to the
New Meadows Project in partnership with New
Avenues for Youth, and Zahra (who uses the
pronoun they) was a speaker at its groundbreaking.
“I got to meet everyone and was really excited,”
they said, “I think it (New Meadows) creates a sense
of community for foster youth, especially for those
who never got a chance to experience that while
moving from house to house and never getting to
know our neighbors.”
Bridge Meadows Executive Director Derenda
Schubert said partnering with New Avenues for
Youth is the best way to offer young people the
benefits from both organizations in one location.
“What we’re hoping is to leverage the power of
intergenerational relationships by giving the youth
support with education, employment and housing,”
Schubert said. “We can give them support in
building beneficial, long-term relationships.”
Juravic and other elders at Bridge Meadows are
eager to reach out to the new tenants. As a former
real estate agent, she sympathizes with the
challenges these youths face, and it’s not just steep
rent. .
“Eighteen years old and it’s goodbye and good
luck? I mean, what chance do they have?” Juravic
said.
She and the elders are doing what they can to
make the moye easier. They helped stock the
youths’ new community kitchen, and many elders
are ready to help with babysitting if any of the new
tenants have children.
“We’ll say ‘come on over.’ We’ll have something to
eat and get to know them,” said Juravic.
Innovative Collaboration
It is not often that two established organizations -
Bridge Meadows and New Avenues for Youth -
would agree to combine services to create a joint
project of this magnitude, according to Sean Suib,
New Avenues for Youth Executive Director. The
New Meadows project took five years of work by the
organizations’ boards and leadership teams, and cost
$3.4 million, with $1.4 million in city funding. Suib
said the project is essential for youths who have
spent years in a paternalistic foster care system.
“They often find themselves at the end of the
road, without any natural social capital relation-ships
that they can rely on, to help with what we know is a
much longer journey to adulthood than just a ‘hey,
you’ll figure it out,’” Suib said.
New Avenues for Youth has an established
program to help youth transitioning out of foster
care called PDX Connect.
Suib said it provides a
whole list of services,
including case
management, on-the-job
skills training and
assistance with college
preparation and
execution,
“What we know about
young people is there are
all kinds of different
flavors of what they
need, and what they’re
interested in, and what
they’re ready for,” said
Suib. “So it’s about
" I t h i n k I I (H e w M e a d o w s }
having this sort of menu
c re a te s a se n se a f
of options.”
c o H t a o a it y l o r fa s te r
At the Dorothy
Lemelson house, New
y o u th s e s p e c ia lly f a r th e s e
Avenues for Youth is
w h o new er f a t a chance
providing that menu of
to e x p e rie n c e th a t? w h ile
services as well as an
m o w in g I r a n i h o u s e ta
on-site resident assistant
honse? a n d n e w e r f e l t i n g
with a background in
to k n o w o u r n e ig h b o r s /*
social services, and a
-ZAHRA
master’s level counselor,
MEW M EADO WS RESIDENT
whose office is located
right next to the New
Meadows «community
living room and kitchen.
Suib said the role of the case worker will be to
work with the foster youths on their transition to