At 17 years old, Josie is articulate and thoughtful. Now a Grade 12 student in Langley, she is gearing up for graduation with plans to attend Trinity Western University in the fall.
It seems hard to believe that the soft-spoken teenager was homeless not long ago.
In fact, at 16, she found herself living at the youth homeless shelter in Abbotsford for nearly a month.
She decided to share her story to help break the stigma and fight stereotypes attached to youth homelessness and to emphasize how much better her experience might have been if there was a homeless shelter for young people in Langley. Josie is a member of the Langley-wide youth task force pushing for a youth homeless shelter.
Josie grew up in what she describes as a verbally abusive home, where she says she was degraded on a regular basis.
As she got older, she started to stick up for herself, which always “made it much worse,” she said.
“I moved out to live with my aunt and uncle when I was 14. Although I was super grateful for them, I wasn’t able to heal because there were family connections that didn’t let me move on,” she said.
After a while she looked into moving to the Okanagan, where her friend lived. The friend’s parents offered to take her in.
She asked her mother, who still had custody of her, if she could make the move.
“She flipped out on me, and through it all, I ended up moving back home even though my social worker was aware this may not be a good idea,” Josie said.
Gradually, things deteriorated and Josie was kicked out of her home.
She lived at a friend’s house for a month, but her depression and anxiety grew and she knew she had to move on. The only problem was this time, she had nowhere to go.
According to Encompass Youth Services in Langley, the majority of teens who are homeless couch surf from home to home, but will find themselves without anywhere to go at some point.
It’s why youth homelessness is so hidden, said EYS’ Alison Cartier, who is working on the Youth Homelessness Initiative. During the day, they are at school, and in the evenings, they try to stay with friends.
At least 162 Langley youth were homeless at some point in their lives last year.
Many teens find themselves without a home because they are fleeing abuse, exploitation, open drug use, extreme poverty or neglect. Others are entangled in addiction themselves or dealing with mental health issues. By the time they seek out Encompass, they are usually in crisis.
“There is no typical client,” said Cartier. “And there is no typical situation. With that, there isn’t a one solution fits all.”
With help from her youth worker, Josie moved into the Cyrus Centre in Abbotsford, a shelter for youth. It was a difficult experience.
“I was too normal, which made me a bit of an outcast there,” said Josie. She doesn’t use alcohol or drugs, but said a lot of the teens who came to the shelter did.
It was usually a different person sharing her room each night, some coming in to the shelter late at night, often agitated or upset.
“I felt very isolated out there,” she said. “We weren’t allowed to have our phones at night, which I totally understand, but it made the nights long and my phone was my connection to my world.”
Eventually, while living at the shelter she found the courage to go back to school.
To do so, she had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. and leave the shelter by 5:15 a.m.
“Let me tell you, it is cold at that time in the morning.”
She would have to take one bus, then wait 30 minutes for her transfer bus to arrive to get her to school on time.
Being an upfront person, when her peers asked her where she had been, she told them: “Living in a homeless shelter.” While her good friends understood, some of her peers didn’t know how to respond and others assumed she had done something wrong to get kicked out of her home.
Returning to the shelter each night, feeling like an outcast, Josie found depression and anxiety getting the best of her.
“I couldn’t sleep. My mind is my biggest enemy and my biggest ally.” She again quit school for a short time.
She turned to her youth worker, to whom she gives much praise to for supporting her through her ordeal.
A youth worker from Josie’s church facilitated a meet-up with a couple who were interested in helping. The Langley couple invited Josie to Easter dinner last year. The meal offered a chance to get to know each other and to see if they were a good fit.
“They took me in after that dinner and I finally have people I can happily call my family,” she said, beaming. “I have a nice home. They are the family I’ve been praying for since I was five.” The couple is taking legal custody of Josie this year.
But it hasn’t been a completely smooth ride. Josie struggles with depression, and last October she almost took her own life, she said.
She sees a counsellor once a week and is feeling stable and happy, looking forward to the future and all its possibilities. She’s leaving the hurt of the past behind her as best she can.
But she doesn’t want to hide her history because she said she shouldn’t feel ashamed about something that wasn’t her fault.
“When you are homeless, your whole life has shifted. It’s almost like being a child and learning how to walk again,” she said. If she’d been able to stay in Langley she thinks she would have been more motivated to keep going to school. She remarked that school is the one stable, ‘safe’ place teens going through personal turmoil can always count on.
Opening a youth shelter in Langley would be a “win for our community,” she said.
“If Langley doesn’t take this seriously, what does that say about what we value?
“If it could help even five or six kids, isn’t it worth it?”
The Langley youth task force hosted a conversation café at the school district office to educate the public about the need for a shelter and has made presentations at both Langley City and Township councils. The request is for a six-to eight-bed facility. But so far, no government at any level has indicated a youth shelter is in the works for Langley.
Josie’s dream is to open a ranch and offer therapeutic riding, art therapy and traditional counseling for youth in need and foster kids.
“I have a heart to help kids,” she said. “I see myself having a big house full of kids.”
Youth in crisis can self refer to Encompass, by dropping in at 20626 Eastleigh Cres. from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday to Friday or calling 604-530-6477.
