The first transitional housing facility for youths aged out of foster care in North County just opened in Vista.
VisTAY is a joint venture between the city of Vista and Urban Street Angels. The program opened last weekend but Monday was the official grand opening.
The 12-bedroom home used to be a memory care facility. The city bought the home for $2.2 million and Urban Street Angels will operate the program. The goal is first to get young people 21 to 24 into stable housing with wraparound services, including vocational training, trade schooling, job placement and mental health services.
“We want them to get stable," Urban Street Angels founder and CEO Eric Lovett-Maerz said. "And we want to find out what they want to do and expose them to a pathway that they thought maybe they never had the opportunity to get."
According to the National Foster Youth Institute, between 11% and 36% of youth aging out of foster care will experience homelessness. Ruben Edward Rodriguez Jr., 21, was one. He was camping near MiraCosta College before a friend told him about VisTAY.
“Obviously, it was new so she didn’t know too much information," he said. "But at that time, I needed it. It’s better than nothing.”
There are 16 beds at the facility and with an average stay of about six to eight months, the program expects to serve about 30 youths a year. It costs $900,000 a year to operate. The Lucky Foundation and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps donated $350,000 to get the program going. Lovett-Maerz is hopeful that government grants would cover the rest.
Vista Mayor John Franklin said it was important to have the first transitional youth housing facility in North County opened in Vista. The city began investing in homeless services about seven years ago, he said.
"We began to see the homeless population increase in our county and in our city of Vista," Franklin said. "And we didn't ignore and wait for somebody else to step in. I asked the city council to develop a strategic plan to address homelessness, and we begun to take concrete steps here in the city of Vista."
Rodriguez Jr. dreams of one day having his own plot of land and living off it. He enjoys living off the land and growing his own food.
"Like having a little space of the garden," he said. "I want to do that in the mountains. But, the only problem is, you have to, like, buy land."
He doesn't have any concrete plans for how to do that, but for now, Urban Street Angels has connected him with a few landscaping businesses. Hopefully, that will lead to a job and stable housing.
