YOUTH OUTREACH

The DEYAS Youth Outreach program began in the late 1980’s with the goal of helping troubled and marginalized youth get off the streets. The service is based and operated on the streets, mainly in the Downtown Eastside with the objective being to engage the youth and assisting them in accessing resources and services. The main focus of the Outreach Workers is to develop and cultivate relationships with the individual using a client-centered program designed to reach the youth where they are. As the life and death struggle on the streets continues, these relationships become increasingly important in the DTES so the youth know that there are people and an organization they can trust.

The mandate is to find youth under the age of 24 who are homeless, at risk of being homeless or simply in need of assistance and offer them an individualized assessment based on their current situation and endeavor to help them find simple and viable solutions including housing, food, clothing, income assistance and any other services that may be required often referring them to other DEYAS programs to further their desire to change their lives. However the program is not limited to just youth as the compassion of the workers will not allow them to ignore a person who is in need.

The Youth Outreach program also helps provide nourishment to, not just the youth, but many street-entrenched and homeless individuals through our snack and meal programs. By offering some sustenance or meal tickets, it enables the Outreach Workers to engage and develop a trust based relationship which, over time, becomes a lifeline to many individuals sometimes even long after they have left the destructiveness of the streets. 

This program operates on a skeleton staff (1 full time, 1 part time) with very limited funding and continues through the dedication of our staff and through generous donations from the Vancouver Food Bank. The donations from the Food Bank enable us to feed up to 350 people a week, but with the limited staffing resources, there are many more people we could assist with increased funding and donations.

Each year the Youth Outreach program also helps to make the holidays a little more bearable by distributing care packages and other essential supplies with our Christmas and Easter drives. To see images of the most recent drives, please click here.

John Turvey’s priority as the founder of DEYAS was children and youth and he provided many original, accessible, user-friendly services to them. Our goal is to continue his vision and ensure that the youth of Vancouver continue to have a strong resource on the DTES who will fight for their rights, offer a hand and help them overcome the barriers that will help them find a stable existence beyond basic survival.