WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS

EVERETT - Virtually every kid in America probably has thought once or twice about running away from home. You know, to join the circus or strike it rich or to slay a dragon or battle pirates they've heard about. It's just part of growing up.

Some don't. Not because they want to but because they're forced to, fleeing abuse by a parent or sibling or being kicked-out because they've come out. Their prospects aren't promising. Their educations incomplete, their marketable skills lacking and the number of couches they can surf finite. Soon enough they're rustling through garbage bins, sleeping in abandoned buildings, becoming easy prey for sex traders and drug dealers and gangs looking for more shooters.

It's a story Cocoon House in Everett, Washington has heard hundreds of times before and is at the core of why it opened its doors in 1991 to help young people ages 12 to 24 who've been living that story get off the streets and get their lives back on track. "Every young person deserves a home," its mission statement reads, "and the opportunity to achieve his or her fullest potential."

Which is why Cocoon House was a perfect place to announce in July 2018 that HUD was announcing the competitive award of $4.6 million to the Washington State Department of Commerce and almost $2.4 million to Snohomish County under its HUD's Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program. The funding, HUD Secretary Ben Carson explains, will help young people who are victims of abuse, family conflict or aging out of foster care are "to find stable housing, break the cycle of homelessness and lead them on a path to self-sufficiency."

The winning grantees are excited and eager to get started. "Our local partners and this project will allow us to protect thousands of youth who find themselves in harm's way," said Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers. "Washington is full of creative and talented people working to solve this complex issue," added Kim Justice, Executive Director of the state's Office of Homeless Youth at Commerce. "Preventing and ending youth homelessness strengthens communities all over the state."

And those to be served by the programs and innovations the HUD funds will provide - young people who are or at risk of homelessness - likely will be excited too. After all, as HUD Northwest Regional Administrator Jeff McMorris explained, homeless people helped HUD develop the notice-of-funding-availability, helped evaluate and select the winners and, almost certainly, will participate in the months ahead in the development of the grantees' comprehensive, measurable plans on how the funds will be used.

A HUD report (www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2017-AHAR-Part-1.pdf) last fall to the Congress found that a January, 2017 point-in-time census of the homeless in Washington State found 2,135 homeless young people. Almost two-thirds - 65.7 percent - were living, unsheltered, on the streets, the third-highest total among the 50 states and thirty times the size of the share for Iowa, the state with the smallest share of unsheltered homeless.

It's a big challenge. But, thanks to pioneers like Cocoon House, we know how to meet it, increasingly, we're developing the resources to do so. The HUD awards to the Department of Commerce and Snohomish County along with a similar award to King County last year that more than two-thirds of the state's counties now have access to HUD youth homelessness funds.

Most kids know that one they'll leave home when the time's right. But most don't run away or be forced out of their home and onto the streets where the odds are stacked steep against them. The work will be hard but the challenge simple - to protect today's kids from that, to give them refuge and, as Cocoon House says, the resources to achieve their full potential. It's what we wanted when we were young. We should demand no less for them.

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