According to Arash Ghafoori, CEO of the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, about 12% of all youths experiencing homelessness in the U.S. resided in Nevada as of 2022. It’s that number and similar statistics, he said, that prove that the problem of homelessness among young people is more than just an “issue du jour,” or a fleeting concern.
Since the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth (NPHY), was incorporated in 2001, the nonprofit has risen to the challenge of relieving youth homelessness by providing young people with shelter and other resources, prompting the passage of laws on their behalf and more.
“Homelessness happens to young people during their most critical, informative education years,” Ghafoori said. “These are 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18-plus year-olds that are getting thrust into homelessness during the years they’re supposed to be learning about themselves, their community, how to participate in society, what they want to do to further themselves and how they want to chase their dreams.”
Recently, the NPHY was awarded an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s $51 million for Youth Homelessness System Improvement initiative, which will help expand the organization’s reach to diverse communities throughout the state and draft a “Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness.”
Vegas Inc sat down with Ghafoori to learn more about youth homelessness in Nevada, how the HUD grant will be deployed to combat it and what anyone in the community can do to have an impact.
What are some of the specific measures NPHY has taken to combat youth homelessness?
We have an over 50-bed housing program. We have a slew of education and employment assistance services—that’s everything from getting youth re-enrolled in school to supporting them in a school, getting them into college. We have programs with UNLV where they can move into the day after they graduate and receive advanced assistance. We have programs with employers where they can get employment training and get employed even before that … We also have a lot of health and wellness services. A lot of young people have been medically neglected. They don’t have support for behavioral health, they don’t have support for diabetes—they don’t have support for a lot of conditions.
Tell me about the Youth Homelessness System Improvement (YHSI) grant and what it will be used to accomplish.
We wanted a grant to start uplifting and coordinating youth voice throughout the state. And we needed to introduce a giant group of collaborative partners to do that. And the grant basically spells out two things that we’re going to create and build capacity for youth voice throughout the state.
And then after we do that, we’re going to sit down and build the first ever statewide Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness. What we’re going to do is a couple things. Northern Nevada does not have any sort of Youth Action Board. Youth Action Boards are critical. These are boards of young people experiencing homelessness who meet together and discuss what’s working, what’s not and then work with local government and other organizations like ours … to affect those changes.
In Southern Nevada, we have an existing Youth Action Board, but it needs to grow and expand and be enhanced through further training and through further mentorship opportunities … This grant will also fund the creation of the first-ever statewide Movement Youth Action Board.
What can the average citizen do to contribute to the battle against youth homelessness in Nevada?
A lot of people are like, “I don’t know what I would do about homeless youth. I’m just a nurse or a teacher or a media personality, whatever.”
No, no, no—everyone can be part of it. We have volunteer opportunities where you can come help us do normal, traditional volunteering. A lot of our volunteer program is actually asking members of the community to come teach a class on a skill set or your hobby.
All of our services aren’t just like business, business, business—trying to get young people out of this situation in a militant fashion where they have to work nine hours a day toward their goals, because they’re youth. They are young people still, and they still have the same desires and indulgences to sleep in and to eat junk food and to hang out with people and play video games.
And so we have to find a balance of doing that, and we invite the community to help us do that. You can stock cans for us and things like that, but you can also just hang out with youth in a very casual way.
Through our movement efforts we also hold quarterly training institutes where people can come just learn more about the systems-level effort, because everyone can help us sign a piece of paper that we can send to legislators to say, “Hey, these are all the people that care about the plight of our youth, and we want you to pay more attention to this, or we want you to pass this particular legislation or to think about creating more resources in the state.”
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