Brady August, right, connects with a youth at the USA Skate rink in Mishawaka three years ago. August still oversees the Street Outreach program at the Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County. Tribune File Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN
SOUTH BEND — Visually, is there a way to tell if a teen-ager is homeless?
Brady August flatly replies no. He goes to the mall, high school cafeterias, the Transpo station and subsidized housing to find kids that are homeless or in crisis.
When he started with the Street Outreach program 14 years ago at the Youth Services Bureau of St. Joseph County, he couldn’t tell who was homeless. So he formed connections with the kids. They led him to kids in trouble.
Now, he said, most of the clients reach out to the Youth Service Bureau, finding an emergency shelter and other programs. About 40 people gathered Thursday as August and two workers from local shelters led a seminar about homeless students, hosted by the Indiana Youth Institute, Early Childhood Alliance and the St. Joseph County Health Department.
The IYI reports that the number of homeless students in northern Indiana has risen over the past decade. In the 2015-16 school year, more than 230 students in St. Joseph County faced uncertainty about where they’d sleep from night to night.
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