HELPING PEOPLE LIVING WITH POVERTY TAKE
POSITIVE STEPS TO IMPROVE THEIR LIVES FOR
OVER 120 YEARS
Changing Lives | Building Communities | Transforming Toronto
About YSM’s Evergreen Centre for Street Youth and the Move to Spadina Avenue
No one chooses to live on the street. Yet many do and sadly, many are youth. They have fallen through the
cracks of the foster system or have faced physical or sexual abuse or LGBTQ discrimination at home. Many
street-involved youth want to look to the future, but often lack the education needed to find employment and
regularly show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
For over 30 years, YSM’s Evergreen Centre for Street Youth has been a leader in meeting the complex needs of
Toronto’s street-involved youth. Their journey starts with a no-cost meal and a safe space to rest. At our daily
drop-in, youth develop relationships and, most importantly build trust with our staff and trusted adults. We
advocate on their behalf to secure housing, offer employment counselling and resume building, provide
workshops and support programs and
deliver free health and dental services. We
Why is this new space so important?
focus on treating each person with respect
and dignity to help them get to a place
•
Will have the capacity to serve more street-youth more often
•
New space will house a much larger, state of the art health centre
where they can progress and sustain
where the complex needs of street youth can be addressed –
change. Our goal is to help this specialized
including clinical rooms for mental health and psychiatry, dental,
optometry and chiropractic
population make positive steps forward,
•
New space will provide vital employment and skills training that will
ultimately resulting in a life that has been
help our street youth transition from surviving to thriving and also
transformed. Thomas, a former streetinclude an employment resource centre, where youth can look up job
opportunities and build resumes.
involved youth, praises Evergreen for
•
New space will provide street youth with resources and support staff
helping him turn his life around.
The size of our current space has
significantly limited our capacity to assist
for housing matters – including housing and shelter referrals,
information and advice.
street youth, so over the last two years we planned and searched for an appropriate solution. In early 2016, we
purchased a new location. By the end of 2017, Evergreen will move from its iconic Yonge Street location into a
newly renovated 24,000-square-foot space on Spadina Avenue that will allow us to assist more youth and
respond to their needs in a timelier manner.
Our new home will allow us to build greater circles of support that engage youth to take positive strides in their
lives. When we move into the new space, we will be one of the largest youth drop in centres in all of Canada,
helping youth meet their basic needs and offering resources that help them transition off the streets.
HELP YSM OPEN THE NEW YSM EVERGREEN CENTRE Contact Dustin Zender, Events & Community Engagement
Specialist by email at [email protected] or by phone 416-929-9614 ext. 4212