Broadway Youth Center ( BYC ) is entering the final weeks of preparation for its move to a new Uptown location in January 2017.
The drop-in center, operated by Howard Brown Health, has for some time been located at Wellington United Church of Christ, 615 Wellington Ave., but will now have its own building "entirely dedicated to youth services, and all the other things that attract young people," said BYC Director Latonya Maley.
BYC's new home will be at 4009 N. Broadway. The move was announced last March and is one of many recent expansions undertaken by Howard Brown Health, which earlier in 2016 opened a clinic on the South Side and is preparing for a December grand opening for yet another facility in Rogers Park.
Maley, who has worked for BYC for about four years, looks forward to the consistency that the new location will bring. The facility, according to its website, is intended as a haven for LGBT youth "seek refuge, medical care, social services, clothes and other much-needed care."
"The entire time I've been working for Broadway Youth Center, we've been unstably housed," Maley said. "This is my first time here when we've been living in a 'home.' We've been doing a lot of work to keep ourselves afloat for a long time, but now we get to live the dreama safe and reliable space for young folks coming in for services, but also offering those services in the way that they were designed, where everything is running at the same time."
Space limitations meant BYC previously could run certain services on certain days. Running services concurrently, Maley noted, means more clients are able to have all or most of their needs met in one afternoon. The new location will have two nurses and medical assistants, for example.
"Young people will be able to get the services that they're already travelling pretty far out for," she added, noting that BYC is anticipating a 15-20-percent increase in the number of clients in the new space. "In 2017, the drop-in program is expecting to serve about 1,100 unique people. Our resource advocacy program is expected to go up, and try to serve [about] 390 people in ongoing case management services."
Maley also said that BYC would offer additional programs "to talk through the hardships they're experiencing and learn new skills as well."
Howard Brown Health President and CEO David Munar said, "BYC is at the core of who we are [as an organization], because young people who are facing challenges because of unstable housing or homelessness, are among the most vulnerable in our community and are whom our system of care must support the most. Their future is in jeopardy if they cannot receive the help and guidance that they need."
Pharoh, a BYC client who did not give his last name, said that he has grateful for many of the services that he's been able to access over the past years, and that he was glad to see the facility coming to a permanent home in Uptown.
"Every change that BYC has made has ultimately been a positive development for them," he said. "I have no qualms in believing that this move will be a better and positive change."