Cornerstone Community Hosts 'Pizza Party'

From Cornerstone Community: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 from 5-7 pm, there will be a special event at the Cornerstone Community Center at 15 Prospect Street in Rockville, CT. There will be a “Pizza Party” to engage area youth who may be homeless or staying in temporary locations with other families. A survey will be administered to understand the breadth, scope and severity of the problem to allow for the proper response in helping solve these issues. Youth in this example are those 24 years of age and under.

This is part of the intensive week long effort in the on-going campaign to end homelessness in our communities, Cornerstone has partnered with Journey Home, the CT Coalition to End Homelessness and the many other partners in the Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network (GH-CAN) to address Youth Homelessness.

After successfully working to eliminate Veteran homelessness and Chronic homelessness, the focus going forward in 2017will be youth & family homelessness. To that end, on January 24th was the Annual Point-In-Time Count to calculate how many people were in shelters and how many remained unsheltered.

From January 24 – 31, 2017, the efforts of many committed volunteers and staff have been focused on getting an accurate count as to how many homeless youth are in our communities that would benefit from assistance.

There will always be those who fall into homelessness but with the Coordinated Access Network in place, the solutions have been streamlined to expedite the process in order to minimize the length and severity of the homeless episodes.

Please share this information with you family, friends and neighbors as well as all local schools, faith communities and places where youth 24 and under frequent. Bryan Flint, Sr., the Cornerstone Shelter Director offers, “This is a shout-out to all of those concerned about our youth. Homeless youth are often reluctant to make themselves known because of the perceived stigma attached to it. Those willing to participate will be asked a series of questions and the results will determine the best course of action to help them. Based on the outcome of the outreach, resources will be sought to adequately address the situation going forward. We can’t properly plan our response without knowing how big the problem is.”

“The 2017 CT Youth Count will provide information essential to our efforts to advance toward the goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020”says Lisa-Tepper Bates, Executive Director of CT Coalition to End Homelessness. “Our goal is to get an accurate scope of the magnitude, needs, and demographics of homeless youth.”

Please join us on Tuesday, January 31, 2017 from 5-7 pm at the Cornerstone Community Center located at 15 Prospect Street, Rockville, CT The Youth Count is a week long effort that corresponds with the Point-in-Time Count to count all of those experiencing homelessness in Connecticut that focuses specifically on youth and young adults aged 24 and below.

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