Hello Dogtown Lens Co

Young People to the Front hosted a Youth Count Town Hall a week after the public release of the 2022 Homeless Youth Count. Panelists included Jeff Katz of My Friends Place, Ashli Vicke of the LA LGBT Center, Iziah Graves of LGBT Center and Youth Expert Board, and Tonny St James of Lens Co and the Youth Expert Board, moderated by Kevin Solarte of Housing Justice Collective. The Los Angeles 2022 Youth Count results indicated an alarming 58% reduction in unsheltered youth homelessness. Panelists discuss the invisibility of youth homelessness, challenges of the count, the impact of the pandemic on young people, and about the changing nature of youth homelessness.

KPCC producer and reporter, Julia Paskin, joins Tonny and Robin to discuss the impact of intimate partner violence on homelessness experienced by women and other findings from her series on the subject, "Pushed Out".

Hello Dogtown is joined by advocates from New York City--Shams aka Da Homeless Hero, and Corinne from Upper Westside HeartsOpen Hearts Initiative. They tell us about what they are fighting for in NYC and how they are fighting for it. They also tell us about #JulyHomelessRights month and how you can join in.

In the most anticipated and bittersweet episode, Robin finally sits down with her friend and mentor Alison Hurst, the founder and executive director of Safe Place for Youth (SPY). After a decade of love and leadership, Alison has announced her retirement. In this episode, Alison shares the history of SPY and what she has learned through her work. We will miss her so much.

We spoke with Mischa DiBattise, the Youth CES Regional Manager (SPA 5) at Safe Place for Youth, about Project Room Key (PRK), a program intended to protect high-risk individuals and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in LA. After learning more about the program, we talked about its gaps and how youth were not able to access PRK in the same way adults could due to unintended policy consequences.

Also if you wanted to know anything about the Coordinated Entry System (CES), Mischa breaks it down!