Homeless youth get a place to call home

The brand-new, low-slung building just off a rolling meadow in one of the newer parts of Prior Lake sits right next to a neighborhood of upscale homes, gleaming at night with Christmas lights. And it's every bit as suburban as its surroundings, from giant flat-screen TVs with video gaming to Starbucks pastries on the kitchen counter.

But for the sign outside, you'd take it for the latest real-estate venture, or dentist's office, in affluent, rapidly growing Scott County.

You'd never guess it was built for homeless youth -- or that the homeless can come from neighborhoods not far from here.

"Our clients come in and say, 'This is so nice! I don't deserve this,'" said Suzie Misel, a case manager who works with them. "And we say, 'Yes, you do -- this was built for you.'"

The building, which opened Dec. 1, is being billed as the first of its kind -- "supportive housing" for the homeless young, with staff on hand to help and no time limits to move on -- in the suburbs south of the river.

Ashley Christensen, 19, a 2006 graduate of Shakopee High School, was one of the first two tenants.

"I loved it," she said. "It put a smile on my face. It made me feel warm and welcome."

The Starbucks pastries are day-olds, donated regularly in big brown paper bags when the cappuccino clientele on the busy highway nearby has passed them over.

And the furniture in the five small apartments is donated as well, by companies such as Key Land Homes, which built the structure that contains them -- and is better known for its work on new subdivisions with names like Bridle Creek, or Provence on the River.

Why just this moment, for a facility like this?

"Some of it is population growth, some of it is demographic change," with more diversity and poverty in the suburbs, said Dan Saad, executive director of Safe Haven, the nonprofit that runs it. "And some of it is that it's been there before, but people didn't know it was happening. Kids would migrate to the Cities."

The rise in the need for social services in counties like Scott and Dakota has partly to do with the spread of immigrants and minorities out of the central cities.

But experts stress that in the case of youth homelessness, it also has to do with basic American cultural norms, such as the tendency of parents to think their job is over after 18 years, and the kids are on their own.

"Kids do a lot of couch-hopping out here," said Teri Funk, Safe Haven's associate director. They move in with friends, get kicked out when they mess up, move into a shared rental, fail to pay and get evicted.

Ashley's sojourn over the past couple of years is fairly typical, staff members say. Her folks are divorced; she and her mom didn't get along, her dad lives "in the boonies," in his daughter's words; her sister already has several others living with her in a small apartment.

"I lived in my car a bit," she said, "and stayed with different friends on different nights."

She has been supporting herself with low-paying fast-food jobs, while intermittently taking classes aimed at making her a hair stylist. SafeHaven will accept as rent one-third of whatever she's earning at a given moment, but also is on her case to move ahead in life.

Beyond the low-cost rental units for teens and young adults who qualify, SafeHaven's welcome center offers anyone in crisis a warm place to sit on a couch and watch TV, or catch e-mail, or shower, or wash clothes. It's for anywhere from a few hours on a single day to years if needed, though there is also a structure that promotes work and training and life skills such as budgeting and cooking a dinner.

"Kids are not always adults at age 18 and don't know about all these things," Funk said. "To put so much responsibility on an 18-year-old is really sad."

David Peterson • 612-673-4440