For the youth, by the youth

The Saturday Center at Puerto Seguro Safe Harbor (PSI) will open this Saturday October 5.

The center will be open every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will offer young adults and teens, 16 to 24 years old, free laundry and detergent, access to showers, including towels, hygiene kits, pizza, take-home meal kits and services to connect them to other resources.

Shay Kelley, Puerto Seguro Safe Harbor board chair, said she wrote the grant to include peer support workers and employees to run the operations. She said youth will lead in shaping the services and activities offered at the center.

Kelley said that, for various reasons, the youth have expressed feeling out of place during PSI’s regular hours and would benefit from being around their peers. The goal is to provide a caring, stable environment for the youth and help them navigate various life challenges, with the hope of preventing them from becoming long-term clients in the future.

The Youth Advisory Board (YAB), compromised of youth with lived experience of homelessness, was formed in 2023 in response to a need in the community for youth services. YAB became aware of a grant and, in their application, shared their own personal experience with homelessness and the lack of resources in their community. In 2023, they secured a grant of $2.3 million for youth services in Southern New Mexico.

The board now oversees the distribution of the funds and opened applications for projects such as youth emergency housing and drop-in centers.

Eighteen-year-old Rae Pargas, who serves on the YAB, believes the center can make a huge difference for youth in Socorro.

“All of us have experience with homelessness, either struggling to find a place, not knowing where is a safe place, not having a safe place, or having a lack of resources, such as food, running water, heat,” Pargas said “We looked for programs in our community, and there wasn’t any. There’s not much out there, especially nothing really directed towards youth or these kind of issues.”

Pargas said they received five applications for the money, including the application for the Saturday Center and they accepted all of them and dispersed the money equitably.

He said it’s an immediate relief when you can get your basic needs met, and it can even feel empowering to be able to take care of them. The center will also offer peer support and serve as a resource for the youth in need of other services.

“The main point is that we want to help people who are struggling like us, or who have struggled like us, and really make a difference because when you don’t have any resources or anybody who seems like they’re looking out for you, it’s really hard to keep going because it kind of feels like you’re alone and there’s really no point,” Pargas said.

Pargas feels it’s important the community understands there are more homeless youth than meets the eye because many feel like they must keep it a secret. He said it’s hard for kids to focus on their education when they are worried about where you are going to sleep, where they are going to get food and also trying to care for younger siblings.

“I notice a lot of adults telling kids, just stick to your education.” Pargas said “What they don’t realize is, right now, a lot of our kids are stuck on survival. They’re not worried about education because they don’t see or even know if they have a future right now; they’re focused on just surviving the next day. And to me, that’s just heartbreaking because we’re youth, we’re kids. We shouldn’t be focused on trying to survive. We should be focused on our education, on our future, on what hopes we have and dreams we have.”

He believes that having a youth-only day where kids can talk to their peers will be an important part of the services.

“I’ve found in my personal experience, and I’ve talked to other people who’ve experienced some of the same things I have, or even worse, that one of the hardest things to deal with when you’re struggling with homelessness or things like that, is that feeling of being truly alone,” Pargas said.

Pargas said sometimes the YAB is underestimated and people are shocked to hear that kids were able to secure that kind of funding.

“As we keep doing this and as we keep showing up, I’ve noticed more and more that there’s a lot of adults that have realized we are serious,” Pargas said.

For more information please visit: psisafeharbor.org or visit their Facebook page