By Alex Frick
Editor’s note: This is part nine of a series that explores the housing crisis affecting Port Townsend and Jefferson County
At 20, Chloe Lopez-Kennison knows all too well what it means to be a homeless youth. Moving into town at 16, she cycled through Port Townsend searching for stability — staying on a friend’s couch, in a coworker’s spare bedroom and the home of a family she knew through a high school friend. Each opportunity ended in the same way: conflict, rejection or both.
“It was really hard to find anywhere to stay,” said Lopez-Kennison. “I was focused on where I was going to live, not on college or what was next.”
Her scramble for stability illustrates how quickly young people can fall through the cracks in Jefferson County and how existing programs, state and local, can step up to assist. Eventually, Lopez-Kennison connected with OWL360, a nonprofit dedicated to helping unhoused and at-risk youth, which was able to connect her with WorkSource, a state-funded training program that paid her an hourly wage during a 26-training program designed by The Leader.
It’s a success story in a community where the barriers faced by young people are well known: a lack of affordable housing, limited public transportation, scarce youth spaces, and jobs that rarely pay enough for young people to cover Jefferson County rents, said OWL360 director Kelli Parcher.
Homeless youth face numerous challenges. “If you’re homeless, it is so hard to get a hold of a Social Security card or a birth certificate,” Lopez-Kennison said. “Those are required for food assistance or housing assistance, and if you don’t have a mailing address, it’s really hard to get access to them.” ...
