London's only pet-friendly youth shelter opens in a week
Trauma-informed care was part of the facility's design from top to bottom
Out of all the supports that London's newest homeless shelter plans to offer to its young clientele when it opens later this month, perhaps none is more important than a wet, slobbery kiss.
"It's a pet friendly shelter," said Steve Cordes, the executive director of Youth Opportunities Unlimited, the social services organization behind the multi-million dollar project.
"If they have a pet, that pet is that truly trusted entity that loves them," he said. "It's unconditional love and support. That's the one being you've trusted through a very hard journey."
It was one of the most important lessons gleaned from years of research and input from a 19-member community advisory group that went into designing the shelter, which looks to create a safe space for homeless youth.
"We had quite a range of input constantly where we could concentrate on design issues," Cordes said.
The new shelter will house up to 30 youth and their pets. The building is divided into three wings of 15, six and nine rooms respectively, so that clients can be distributed across those wings in a customized way that maximizes peoples' sense of personal safety.
"If we have a number of young women, more young women than men, there's a natural opportunity to have one wing for women and two for men, and vice versa, for an increased sense of safety for everybody."
A sense of safety is front and centre in the building's design, with controlled access, a private courtyard, so clients can engage in group activities outside of prying eyes, and of course, each of the shelter's 30 clients gets a private room, a luxury that's almost nonexistent when you're homeless.
"You experience almost no privacy ever," Cordes said. "[Here] you're in a caring place where you're respected and you have a whole team that's going to try to find you a new home."
In fact, the first person any new potential client sees, according to Cordes, is a diversion worker, someone who interviews potential new clients to see if a youth shelter is the best fit.
"It might be you have trusted family or friends that can provide safe housing," he said. "The diversion worker goes through all that kind of conversation with you to make sure shelter is the right option."
The shelter located in the Oxford Street East and Clarke Road area is set to open August 17.
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