Young Lives Redeemed

Young Lives Redeemed takes transitional-age emancipated foster youth from homelessness to stability and self-sufficiency through engagement in our Wellness Program, which includes connection to trauma-informed mental healthcare, substance abuse treatment, sustainable housing, secondary and post-secondary education, vocational programs, job training and employment. We envision a world where no former foster youth are living on the streets or incarcerated. We seek to change lives and create hope.

Our Executive Director has over 30 years experience working with at-risk youth.  He founded Young Lives Redeemed in 2014 to meet the most critical needs of this population for which there is a large gap in services.

(1) We serve homeless former foster youth through our Wellness Program.  This program consists of residential therapeutic treatment (stage one), outpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment with structured sober living (stage two), and independent living and societal reintegration (stage three).  One of our clients, who entered our Wellness Program in 2016 after eight years of living on the streets, self-medicating with drugs, has phased through to independent living, is finishing coursework for his Human Services degree at a local California State University.  He is also working part-time. (2) We continue to do outreach and engagement where local homeless youth congregate.  We have been working with many youth from the Santa Ana Riverbed, and experienced a large influx of clients when the County cleared the Riverbed of its homeless encampments.  It has been estimated that it takes approximately 14 contacts with an individual before he/she trusts a service provider enough to agree to seek services.  We are finding that youth agree to enter our program within three contacts on average.  We have an ongoing jail visit program where we counsel and connect with youth in order to start the healing process before they are released and returned to the streets. (3) We continue our advocacy work to improve the outcomes for foster youth still in the system, and to increase the availability of services to emancipated foster youth.  Our Executive Director serves on several public and private committees and task forces relating to foster youth.Our goal for the year is to place as many youths into our Wellness Program as we are able to, based on donations received.  We have a wait list due to lack of funds. 

Funds to be used: (1) To supplement the cost of residential therapeutic treatment, for which all of our clients receive scholarships from our collaborative treatment providers. (2) For structured sober living, and outpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment, so that our youth can continue their healing and growth after residential treatment. (3) To subsidize transitional housing until our youth are stabilized, financially and emotionally. (4) To subsidize the cost of quality on-going trauma-informed therapy, for which all of our clients receive discounted rates from our collaborative treatment providers. (5) To connect youth to post-secondary education, vocational programming, job training and/or living wage jobs, so that they can become independent. 

We are Orange County based.  We serve all of Orange County, and seek to serve all of Southern California as there are no other organizations addressing the specific needs we serve.

Less than three percent of foster youth graduate from college despite the millions of dollars in financial resources (scholarships, grants, etc.) available. The majority of aged out foster youth will be homeless or incarcerated within two to three years of emancipation.  Other than the absence of a stable biological family unit, the number one cause of this lack of success in post-secondary education, as well as homelessness and incarceration, is unresolved childhood trauma and related self-medication with alcohol and drugs. These are the exact problems Young Lives Redeemed addresses.

It is believed that approximately 75% of inmates currently incarcerated (80% for death row inmates) were at one time in the child welfare system.  We can pay for these social ills now (at a fraction of the cost), or pay for them later.