A couple of months ago, Marco Manzo was praising Toussaint Academy for helping him get his grades up so he could join the cheer team at San Diego High School. He had started living at the downtown shelter for homeless teens after leaving home because of the volatile relationship he said he had with his mother.
Now Manzo, 16, is thanking Toussaint counselors for giving him the coping skills he'll need to do something he never expected: return home.
"I'm looking at it as, I've already walked that road and now I know which way not to go," Manzo said. "So for me, it's more of a second chance."
Father Joe's Villages is closing Toussaint at the end of the year, then reopening it as permanent supportive housing for 40 homeless adults ages 18 to 24.
The facility currently serves 13 unaccompanied teens like Manzo — not in the foster care system but with home situations that have landed them on the streets or friends' couches.
Deacon Jim Vargas, president of Father Joe's, said the program consistently had open beds — it can serve 26 — and the cost per client was "leaps beyond" what it cost to house individuals at its other shelters.
Additionally, the federal government is pushing homeless service providers like Father Joe's to shift toward offering clients permanent homes instead of emergency and short-term housing.
Vargas said the teens who will soon turn 18 might be able to come back to Toussaint after it reopens. Staff is working to place the others with family members or in other programs.
Vargas suggested those programs may be in other cities; Toussaint is the only shelter of its kind in San Diego County. When asked if the teens moving to different cities would be close to family, Vargas said, "every situation is different."
Voice of San Diego's Lisa Halverstadt reported one resident will go into a San Francisco program near an older sibling.
"Just because this resource is closing does not mean people don't care about you. I care about you." — Marco Manzo
"We're focusing on these teens to make sure that we place them in appropriate situations," said Vargas, adding that their safety is the utmost priority. "And then we can move forward in order to affect change in a much bigger way."
The number of homeless adults camping on the streets of East Village has doubled to 1,400 in the past two years. The kind of housing planned for Toussaint's building has been found to save public agencies money and stop the revolving door of homelessness in other settings.
But supporters of Toussaint worry about sending teens into unstable situations that might lead to chronic homelessness. They've started a Facebook page and are circulating a petition asking Vargas to reconsider the move.
Manzo said he isn't angry with Father Joe's for dissolving the program, but he does regret that teens who become homeless won't have Toussaint to turn to.
"Toussaint was a very, very, very, very special place and I want to thank everyone who helped us," Manzo saud. "And I just want to say that if you are a homeless teen, don't give up. Just because this resource is closing does not mean people don't care about you. I care about you. People care about you. I may not know you, but I love you."
