February 15, 2007 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Group gets youths off streets Lynnette Curtis By LYNNETTE CURTIS REVIEW-JOURNAL Callyce Carroll, 18, never considered himself homeless, even while he was living in his truck. "I just thought I was the only person in the world in that situation," the man said Tuesday while hanging out at Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth's drop-in center across from UNLV. Carroll had been homeless, off and on, since he was about 14 years old. He sometimes slept outside or on friends' couches. He worked the odd construction job to earn spending money. For a while, he and several family members managed to rent a downtown motel room. "It was an unstable environment," he said. "You live day to day. You can't plan ahead because you're worrying about how you're going to eat tonight, where you're going to sleep tonight." About a year ago, a friend told Carroll about Nevada Partnership, one of a few local groups that helps homeless youngsters get off the street. He made a call. "They put me in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate," Carroll said. "It's hard to describe the feeling of a nice place after you've been sleeping in a truck." Now Carroll has a full-time job and is working on getting his EMT's license. After work, he often hangs out with other young people at the drop-in center that Kathleen Boutin, Nevada Partnership's director, said the 7-year-old organization has outgrown. "Obviously, you can see we are pretty small," Boutin said. "We are bursting at the seams." The facility includes a small "rec room," with a leather sofa, TV and air hockey table; a pantry stocked with snack foods; and a modest computer lab and conference room. The center also has a cramped closet stacked with donated new and used clothes that youngsters are welcome to take if needed. Carroll refers to the closet as a "boutique." The organization helped about 1,500 homeless youths last year, Boutin said, and needs more space to accommodate them and more staff members and to extend the facility's hours. She would like to see Nevada Partnership's administrative offices, sharing a building several miles away, in the same location as the drop-in center. Boutin has her eye on a former dental clinic nearby that has about 1,000 square feet more room than the group's current building. She's trying to raise $750,000 to buy the building. "We want to be open seven days a week," she said. "We can't do that here." Boutin describes her organization as a "catch-all for kids." "It's really a triage," she said. Young visitors to the drop-in center can get help finding a job, rental aid, shelter placement or a ticket home. They might receive food vouchers, free haircuts, bus passes, clothes and school supplies. Those 16 to 18 years old are eligible to live in one of the agency's furnished apartments if they attend school or work full-time. Del Sol High School senior Hakim Mohamed has been living in one of the units for the past couple of months. "I was staying with a friend, and it wasn't going well," he said while sitting in his living room. "I basically became a couch-surfer. I saw a sign (advertising Nevada Partnership) and called." Mohamed, who came to Nevada from Minnesota to escape a "bad crowd," said he continued to attend school while he was homeless. But his grades suffered. "Once I got into the program, they went right back up," he said. Mohamed plans to be the first member of his family to attend college and wants to be a police officer. The Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth in late 2005 conducted Clark County's first count of homeless youth. It found that about 1,600 youngsters from 12 to 20 years old spend time homeless each year in Southern Nevada. Many of them are escaping abusive and unstable situations and are unable to return to their parents or guardians. Their circumstances are made worse, Carroll said, because of their youth. "You can't get a place to live if you're underage," he said. "You can't get a job. You're just stuck."