Unhoused Youth

Hey y'all, welcome back to Fostering Compassion, the podcast that bridges the gap between "sending thoughts and prayers" to actually providing the support that people need. I'm Tibby Starks, your radically compassionate podcast host, and I'm so happy to be back with episode two.

Before we get into the episode, if you're not already following us on Instagram, I'm @FosteringCompassionPod. Give me a follow and share with me how you're fostering compassion in your community by taking a picture or a video and tagging the show. Also, if you would like to highlight someone in your community, send me an email. I'm tibby@fosteringcompassionpod.com. And tell me about them. I'll be happy to shout them out on the podcast and maybe even have them on as a guest to talk about the impact they're making in their community.

Lastly, in the previous episode, we spoke mainly about growing our compassion skills. Y'all, I know the concept feels almost impossible to do lately but trust me, it is possible. And now we know, more than ever, that compassion is necessary for our mental well-being. So if you skipped episode one, go on back and have a listen. It's filled with actionable steps to move you from thoughts and prayers because we all know those aren't enough to taking action and providing the support that people need.

In this episode, we'll be talking about youth homelessness and highlighting a nonprofit organization called Daybreak from Dayton, Ohio. With me for the conversation is JT Szabo, Associate Director of Development and Communication of Daybreak. When this episode airs, it will mark the end of Homeless Youth Awareness Month.

Now the inspiration for this podcast came from my time volunteering with CASA, which is Court Appointed Special Advocates, an organization that works directly with youth in foster care. Now my experience gave me a firsthand look into the foster care system and, more importantly, the experiences of young people being subjected to it. I feel very strongly that we need to raise awareness about what is happening in every community, and in every school. So thank you for tuning in today and sharing with your friends and family so that we can all do better.

Because the truth is as many as 4.2 million young people have experienced a period of homelessness this year in the US. So it's very likely that someone you know has been affected by homelessness. And clearly, this is a huge issue, and I wanna delve into it, and I wanna find out what steps we can take to change these things, especially when it comes to our youth. So how did we get here?

If you're fortunate enough not to have found yourself unhoused, you may wonder, how does one end up homeless? And isn't it something that's kind of their own fault? People become homeless for so many different reasons, including a loss of a job or lowered wages, loss of public benefits, health crises, increased rent, family emergencies, or even things like landlord bullying. Yeah, scary, right?

Homelessness is driven by systematic failures, including a lack of affordable housing and institutional racism, not from things like personal failings, you guys. A survey of homelessness in New York City showed that families seeking shelter were coming directly from eviction or even fleeing domestic violence, and many others were seeking shelter after residing in a situation of overcrowding.

The fact is that the monthly cost of living in the US is $2,213, which is actually 2.26 times more expensive than the world average. And the average salary after taxes in the US is $4,223. That's just enough to cover living expenses for 1.9 months. And this data comes from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Ok, so it's hard out there. We all know it, but why are youth homeless!? This is an excellent question we should all be asking ourselves. And the truth of the matter is the child welfare system is sometimes described as the highway to homelessness. You heard that right. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, over 19,000 youth left foster care in 2021 without reuniting with their parents or having another permanent home.

As I mentioned at the top, 4.2 million youth and young adults experience homelessness in the U.S. Well, 700,000 of those are unaccompanied minors, meaning that they are not part of a family or accompanied by a parent or guardian. And this number, unfortunately, is likely an undercount due to varying definitions of homelessness and the challenges with contacting unhoused people, particularly unhoused youth.

National survey data also reflects that homelessness affects youth living in rural, suburban, and urban communities at similar rates. So if you think this isn't happening in your community, it is. Some reports that I found cited that as many as 1 in 10 youth between the ages of 18 and 25 experience homelessness, but that half of them are couchsurfing in homes to avoid sleeping in the streets or in shelters, and this means that they're not counted by HUD's tallying.

Now I know that we are all deemed adults at age 18, but I also know that very few of us are actually truly prepared for the stressors of adult life by age 18. Okay, so 20% of young adults who are in care become homeless the moment that they are emancipated at age 18.

And this makes sense, right? Because we know now that the brain is not fully mature until age 25. We're still developing the parts of our brain that affect our emotional and cognitive development. So these youth get easily overwhelmed with trying to find gainful employment, navigating their social circles, and trying to understand themselves, all while trying to find an affordable place to live. Fortunately, in 2021, the child welfare provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act helped to extend foster care in 48 states. Now these policies are on a state-by-state basis. So I strongly encourage you to go to childwelfare.gov and look up your state and be informed about what's going on in your particular state because the truth is nationwide, 50% of our unhoused population has spent time in foster care. And to me, that is a startling and important fact to be aware of.

Foster care provides temporary housing and care for children and adolescents until they can be reunited with their families. Sometimes they can be taken in by other relatives. It's called kinship care. In other situations, we know that they can be adopted after a certain period of time. And now, today, we're talking about what happens when they become emancipated. More often than you might think, our foster care system is failing our kids. They're not finding them permanent homes. And this...results in transition after transition. And as we're finding, that final transition becomes to the street. So a study in Washington state found that approximately one quarter of youth that exited foster care at age 17 or older became homeless within 12 months of that exit. Now good on Washington state because they raised their emancipation age to 23.

Now, if you're thinking age 23 seems a little advanced to need this kind of support, let's remember that we are dealing with complex trauma. Being removed from your family is trauma. After a child is removed from their family and sent to foster care, they might be moved again and again and again. And as we said, they may never find permanency before aging out. And if that's happened, they may not have acquired adequate coping skills to deal with life. Suddenly, like a light switch, all of the services that they've become accustomed to relying on just, poof, turn off.

Now in 2021, a study by the University of Chicago found that young people who remained in extended foster care in California through age 21 had stabler lives compared with their peers who left government custody at age 18. Two years later, they had $650 more dollars on average in their bank account and were 19% less likely to have been homeless between the ages of 21 and 23. They also had greater odds of completing a high school credential and attending college. So the research really supports extending foster care and supporting young adults into their mid-20s.

We know that these young adults are again dealing with the trauma of navigating the system in addition to whatever happened to them before they came into care. So when I tell you that these young adults are more likely to experience behavioral, mental, and physical health issues, housing problems, employment and academic difficulty, early parenthood, and incarceration, I know you won't be that surprised. But what you may not know is that there's another group of youth who are 120% more likely to become unhoused than their counterparts. And that group is LGBTQ+ youth. Not only are they more likely to be found homeless, they have a harder time accessing safe housing at every point along the housing continuum from shelter to permanent housing. Additional at-risk groups are parenting and pregnant youth, as well as young people of color, and they round out these demographics that are the most at risk of becoming unhoused.

Now I know you won't be surprised when I tell you that foster care is not the only thing affecting these young adults because in the U.S., where we have an extreme housing shortage, the number of people facing homelessness has risen every year for the past five years. In fact, according to a report, The State of Homelessness, conducted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 6 million US households spend more than 50% of their income on rent. Now keep in mind that the formula for affordability is not more than 30% on rent and utilities. Now I know a lot of folks from my generation are going to think, "What, 30%?! That would be amazing!" Because housing is a real problem. In fact, over the last decade, the nation hasn't made any real progress in reducing the number of Americans who are at risk of becoming unhoused. And if you're thinking, hey, maybe we can build our way out of this crisis, you might be missing a little thing called zoning laws.

Yep, there's even more to the story because these zoning laws are compounding our housing issues. Exclusionary zoning laws place restrictions on the types of homes that can be built in particular neighborhoods. Common examples include minimum lot sizes, minimum square footage requirements, and even wholesale prohibitions on multifamily homes like apartments. And have you ever noticed that the homes near the good schools are so expensive? In fact, they're about 2.5 times as much as those near poorer-performing schools. And in metropolitan areas with more restrictive zoning, this gap can be even worse. But according to the Brookings Institute, if we loosen these zoning regulations, we would reduce our housing cost gap, and therefore we would also narrow our school test score gap by four to seven percent.

Now it's important to understand the origins of these zoning laws, which date back to the 19th century. The initial intent was safety from things like fire and as somebody who grew up outside Chicago learning all about the Chicago fire, I get it. We can't just have Mrs. O'Leary and her cow burning down the whole city and all of our neighborhoods with it, right? But these are not lantern-kicking cows burning down neighborhoods. These are families and children. And exclusionary zoning laws have a profound impact on social welfare because families and where they live matter.

Unfortunately, in subsequent decades, Some zoning laws have been used to discriminate against people of color and to maintain property prices in suburban and, more recently, urban neighborhoods. Using data that covered virtually the entire U.S. population from 1989 to 2015, researchers showed that neighborhoods can have a significant causal effect on children's long-term outcomes, including their earnings. So again, exclusionary zoning rules drive up housing prices and keep poorer families out of wealthier neighborhoods that have high opportunity. This leads to worse outcomes for the children, with lower standardized test scores and greater social inequality over time. So clearly, housing has an effect on our test scores, it has an effect on our ability to earn a living long-term, but it also has an effect on mental health, right? I mean, if you don't have housing, what do you have?

Circling back to our unhoused youth population, suicide is the leading cause of death among youth experiencing homelessness, and these youth report a high rate of suicide attempts. It's really important to also recognize the difficulty of moving away from homelessness. And I know that sounds counterintuitive, right? That's the goal to be housed. However, moving away from our family and friends is always difficult. Now imagine the people that you're leaving behind are unhoused, and you're about to go find housing. And that housing might be life or death for you, but it also might mean the loss of your social network.

Now let's not forget that the last time we talked in episode one, we covered what's called this loneliness epidemic. That's a public health emergency in the United States right now. So with the youth who are finding themselves homeless, they're having trouble transitioning over and over again. They're having trouble building that social network from the very beginning.

So the presence of somebody, like even a service provider or a support person, can help these youth through these transitions. It's been shown that, especially for youth like LGBTQ+ youth, having at least one person in their life who validates them can be the difference between life and losing them to suicide. So you might be ready to ask yourself, how am I going to make an impact? How am I going to find out what's going on in my community? And so again, I ask that you go to childwelfare.gov to find out exactly what's going on in your state. I also encourage you to check out places like the National Foster Youth Institute. They have local chapters across America. You can also go to covenanthouse.org/get-involved, and you can become a CASA like I did and become an advocate for somebody in foster care. And if you're ready to dive all the way in, you might even consider what it would take to become a foster parent in your state.

Finally, as I promised at the top, we're gonna dive into this interview with JT Szabo of Daybreak in Dayton, Ohio, and find out what they're doing to make an impact.

Tibby Starks
All right, JT, welcome to Fostering Compassion. Thank you so much for being here with us today and helping us learn more about how we can help young people who are facing homelessness. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive into Daybreak, the shelter in Dayton? Then we'll learn more about how you got there and what they do.

JT Szabo
Yeah, thank you, first off, for having me on the program and helping to kickstart this movement essentially. My name is JT, and I am the associate director of development and communication here at Daybreak Dayton. Long story short, the last ten years of my life have really been dedicated to child welfare, and the compassion themes are woven in and out as you would expect.

For myself personally, a big part of what I am passionate about is giving back, specifically to kids and youth that maybe didn't have the same opportunities that I did, particularly growing up here in Ohio. We have a lot of opportunities and a lot of resources that don't always trickle down to some of our more vulnerable communities and neighborhoods.

I really feel a passion and almost a calling; you would say, to take some of the privilege that I've been afforded and some of the opportunities that I've had, both professionally and personally, and really give back and foster that compassion to the community through a number of different ways.

Tibby Starks
I appreciate that so much. I can definitely relate. I started working with youth in foster care through CASA a little about a year and a half ago. And that's really what brought me to this. That was the inspiration for the podcast. I really do think that people like yourself want to learn more about this. And so that's why we're here. And so you have been with Daybreak for a while now, and you're starting to get used to that role. Why don't you explain to us what exactly is Daybreak for the audience that isn't familiar with it?

JT Szabo
Yeah, and to be honest, I wasn't exactly familiar with Daybreak, perhaps like I should have been, when I came on board. So I've been with Daybreak about six months now, which it has been a bit of a shock to the system going from the for-profit world and the entertainment world to now we are a direct service provider, and we are the region's only homeless shelter specifically for youth.

And that is a need that is insurmountably needed, at least in our community, and I'm sure across the country as well, specific safe resource space for youth that may not have the ability to advocate for themselves or their own wellbeing, or may not even realize the vulnerability that they have.

And so to be able to be part of an organization that is so missionally driven towards a specific goal, and that is of providing shelter, food, clothing, resources, and opportunity for those aged 10 to 22 in our community, goes so far beyond any other occupation or any job that I've been fortunate enough to have, and I've had some fun ones, but this one has the...sense of pride and the sense of accomplishment that I don't think you could get outside of the work that we do.

Tibby Starks
Absolutely. That resonates with me so much. I loved working with the youth in foster care to the point where I think people, it's intimidating, right? You know, you really do have to.

JT Szabo
Yes.

Tibby Starks
You have to be. I'm trying to look for the right words, but you have to be confident and you have to have dealt with a lot of whatever traumas you might have, right? Because going in and working with the foster care, at least from a CASA court appointed special advocate perspective, you're gonna see a lot of things that could be triggering. And so it is, you know, I recognize not for everybody, but for those of us who want to do the work and think that, you know, we feel called. It's really important that we lean into that, right? Because it's not for everybody. But I was curious, you know, you started mentioning 10 through 22. That's a huge age range. It's beautiful. What services are these youth getting at those different age points? Brackets.


JT Szabo
Yeah, and I think that's one of the biggest differences between our organization and maybe what you would think of in regards to a homeless shelter. Here in Dayton, we're very fortunate to have a number of different shelters to service that population of citizens that are suffering from homelessness. And we make that distinction very intentional that they're not homeless people. It does not define who they are.

That's just the current circumstance that they're living through. And so we take that very seriously. And what we do, as opposed to maybe some of the shelters and providers that work more with the adult population, is we take them in and establish the basic needs that they need here in modern life. So they need shelter, they need food, and they need opportunity. And our organization prides itself on providing all three. So whereas maybe in an adult shelter, we might have an 18-year-old that just aged out of the foster care system, if they are able to come to Daybreak, not only would they get their own room in our shelter, we have a capacity of 24 individual rooms right now in our youth shelter, separated between adult and youth.

So they have their own space, which for a lot of the kids, that is immeasurably important, because maybe they haven't had that in a very long time, if ever. And so once we establish shelter and safety, then we can provide them with the other critical needs that they have to either address some of the circumstances that led to their homelessness, or perhaps find ways to navigate their life in a way to make... more opportunities than they would have otherwise had. So when they come to Daybreak, after they've established their space and they're safe, and they're off the streets or off the couches that they've been surfing on other people's apartments or out of the car that they've been living in, then we can provide them with a case manager who kind of like a guidance counselor in high school, if you want to think.

They will hold their hands step by step through our process to provide educational assistance. When you look at the stats, four out of every 10 youth that come through our shelter doors do not have a high school education or a GED if they are of age. So we address that issue. Five out of every 10 have a history of substance abuse, whether that is just...self-medication for some mental health issues or if that is just some choices that maybe could have been avoided. We will work with that as well. And then the big one is that 70% of the youth that come to Daybreak have suffered some form of abuse or neglect. And so there's a lot of trauma that comes with all of those figures. And it's our job then to work with them through therapy, through counseling. Through job training programs and educational assistance. And so when they come to Daybreak, we don't want them sitting on a bunk, just wasting their time because these are critical years for youth development. We are actively engaging with them and working with them to better themselves either out of their circumstance or towards the opportunities that they've wanted all along. And so it's a wonderful thing that we're able to do for them.

Tibby Starks
Absolutely. I mean, like you pointed out, a lot of these kids haven't had their own space. They, you know, do you know how many of your youth come from foster care, like percentage-wise, or are you seeing other reasons?

JT Szabo
We see a lot more than you would expect. And that was a surprise for me when I came to Daybreak is, of course, you're going to have young adults that have aged out of foster care. That is a critical issue nationwide. But we also have other issues that maybe on the surface, you wouldn't necessarily impact with homelessness. 40% nationwide of the homeless youth in our age category identify as LGBTQ. And so there's a lot of background causes and issues that may cause someone that's struggling with identifying within a household that maybe isn't supportive, maybe isn't accepting of who they truly are, and that can lead itself to housing insecurity if they're kicked out of their home if they run away to escape abuse or neglect. There's a lot of different reasons that may go unnoticed within the foster care or judicial system, but still are very critical and very relevant to those that are suffering from that.

Tibby Starks
Absolutely. And I noticed that you guys, have an LGBTQ+ specific programming there.

JT Szabo
Yes. And that is relatively recent. So we opened what we call David's Place in 2021 at the height of the pandemic, as you know, the world is in total chaos. The kids that come to us have been in chaos all along. So really, it was a great representation of the experience that the people that walk through our doors are having every single day.
And so, in 2021, we were able to open a safe haven for the LGBTQIA+
IA plus youth that identify that are facing homelessness in our community. And what we found was there is a flourishing of acceptance, of tolerance within our own homeless community here in Dayton. But we're also able to welcome others into our services that maybe wouldn't have fit the traditional homeless model. And so we're able to reach more now because of that and provide the services and just a family for people that maybe wouldn't normally have that.

Tibby Starks
Right. Building a network is so hard, and earlier in the episode, I talked a little bit about how when you're going from an unhoused situation to housing, sometimes that means that you're leaving your network that you have built, even if that means being unhoused. And so that can sometimes...you know, keep people, hold people back from really wanting to go inside.

JT Szabo
Exactly. And there's a lot of reasons why. Yeah.

Tibby Starks
And that's amazing that you all can provide connection. And that's so important for these youth. I saw that you have emergency shelter and then you've got housing as well. It sounds like you've got the LGBTQ+ supports. And then I noticed that you also have, you mentioned a little bit job readiness. What sort of things do you do with the youth there to get them ready to get out into the world?

JT Szabo
Yeah. And when you look at homelessness and our mission specifically, the best way to end homelessness for somebody is to provide the means to support themselves. And as part of the Daybreak services, we do offer job training. And that has changed somewhat over the years. Daybreak itself has been around since 1975. So the needs of the community have changed. The needs of the youth that we serve have changed. But the end result remains the same.

We try to provide skills, resources and abilities that they can utilize to earn a living and hopefully take that and run with it towards a happy, healthy life. And we have youth that have graduated through our program that are fully employed, have careers, families, and the success because of the skills that we were able to instill in them. And Daybreak itself kind of has a little bit of a famous reputation in some circles because we used to provide the ability to manufacture dog treats. And so for about 20 years, Daybreak provided a job training program called Lindy's Bakery. And what we would do is eight weeks at a time, our youth would come into a commercial kitchen on campus, and they would work a regular shift. They would earn an hourly pay. They would be responsible for their job as if they were in a private enterprise. And we produced gourmet dog treats that then our company would sell with the proceeds going back to our job training as kind of a social enterprise. Unfortunately, during COVID, at the same time that we were opening our LGBTQIA space, we also lost the means to produce those dog treats.

And so instead of just eliminating that program entirely, what we were able to do in 2021 was pivot from making dog food to making people food. And so the same program is still in existence, but now they are making human food three times a day. And we actually utilize that now to feed our shelter and our housing clients with breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day produced by themselves.

Tibby Starks
Wow. That's really impressive. I did see something about the dog treats, but that is so, yeah, that's so cool. I mean, you're teaching them entrepreneurship. Yeah, that's amazing. And these kids really haven't been empowered, especially if they were in foster care. They're taught that you kind of have to go by the system. It rules your life, your caseworker and all of that. So to be able to see that you can kind of take the reins. That's beautiful for them.


JT Szabo
And on that point, when I'm out in the community, more close to the University of Dayton campus here south of downtown. And there are a lot of restaurants that if you go near campus, inevitably, you'll run you'll walk into a restaurant and see a former Daybreak client working, making a living in a management position. It's absolutely amazing to see the empowerment that we can provide them because now they have an employable skill that they otherwise wouldn't have had.

Tibby Starks
That is fantastic. And it sounds like you guys are always open to creating new things. I mean, 2021 sounds like you shifted a couple of things that you recognized. Is there anything new that you know, maybe that you could share with us that you're or what are some things that you're hoping to see?


JT Szabo
Yeah, it's coming out of the pandemic has been a challenge for not just us, but for everyone. What we've noticed is the needs of the youth coming through our doors have changed, even since 2020. What we're seeing is a more concerning trend towards mental illness. We're seeing an uptick in substance abuse among our population, and there are many different causes. But those are two critical issues that are obviously on our radar. It's on public health's radar across the world. But here in our community, these are vulnerable populations that we still have an obligation and an opportunity to address those needs. And so that's really kind of the next step for our organization as we approach 50 years in 2025, which is amazing that we've been able to do this for so long. But now, like I said, the needs are changing, and so we have to adapt with that. And so in the next short future, we're gonna be hiring additional therapists, additional case managers, and implementing programs to address the substance abuse issue, address the mental health concerns, because there's a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, a lot of other...letter combinations, whether it's fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, that is one that is really starting to pop up on people's radar because it does have an impact. I've read a stat that 80 to 90% of all incarcerated inmates have some form of fetal alcohol exposure. And so there are systemic issues that our organization can take steps to address before they reach adulthood. And so that's kind of what Daybreak is eyeing for the future.

Tibby Starks
I love that. Where are the youth getting mental health services now? I mean, are they under Caresource, which is provided by the state? And do they get their services outside?

JT Szabo
Yeah, and there's a couple different ways. And every case is unique and every youth that comes to us is unique in what they need. We have therapists in-house that can work with them that meet with them regularly. We're in the process of adding additional mental health resources, but there's also external partners. Dayton Children's has a phenomenal mental health program, as does Cincinnati Children's. We work very closely with Equitous Health to provide a lot of resources, particularly with our LGBTQ community. They come in at least once a month and do free HIV screenings. And that's open to any of our clients, whether or not they identify as LGBTQ or not. And so just having those resources available is so critical in why we need to work towards adding more.

Absolutely. I'm so grateful that you all are in Dayton doing this work because to be honest with you, I have worked with youth from all of the surrounding counties, and just from my experience, I know that what you guys are doing is invaluable. And so, you know, what is, you mentioned a little bit about Daybreak's goals as far as growing these mental health capacities. What do you think Daybreak's potential is? You're about to hit 50 years soon, and what's your long-term vision?

JT Szabo
There are so many opportunities, because unfortunately, the work that we do is not going to be unnecessary anytime soon. And so that's a concern. We have gone through a pretty decent amount of transition in the last three years to the point where we have a brand new chief executive officer, Alicia Murray, and she is a lifelong social worker, came up through the job and family services, has been with Daybreak for nearly 20 years as a case manager and then our director of operations for a number of years, who understands our youth probably better than anyone else within a five block radius of this building. And she has some lofty goals. And she identifies that mental health is a major component of the need that we're seeing in our community. But she has some other lofty goals too. You mentioned that you've seen youth from all of the area counties and seen the same things outside of the Dayton metro area. And we're seeing that too.

We have youth that come to us here on Patterson Boulevard in downtown Dayton from Sydney, from Troy, from Greenville, from Springfield, from Cincinnati, because we are the only provider of what we do in Southwest Ohio.  And so a big part of where Daybreak needs to go is we need to make sure that the people and the youth that need our services can access them.

Tibby Starks
And do you foresee being able to expand as far as your beds, the number of beds or apartments or things like that? Or is it right now sort of like in a holding?

JT Szabo
Everything has been in a hold because of the transition and because we are just accelerating from the pandemic. We have a new leadership team. We have a new board of trustees that are energized and ready to take daybreak to the next level. It's just going to be a matter of making sure that we can provide the funding for that. And that is a critical need in our organization and nonprofits anywhere, really. We get some funding from Medicaid, some funding from corporate grants, but we rely on donors. We have over a thousand individual donors that make it a priority to give back to the youth in our community. And we could always use more and we could always enjoy the gratitude and the support of those that feel that the next generation is worth investing in.

Tibby Starks
Absolutely and that's a huge reason why I wanted to have you here because like I said I really believe in what y'all are doing. And it's an honor.

JT Szabo
Oh the honor is all me to be able to share what we do. As a foster parent myself,
I came into daybreak with some sort of an understanding of the need and what the youth are facing. But being here and seeing it at the ground level has been a life transforming event for me to the point where there will never be enough that we can do for this population.

Tibby Starks
I wholeheartedly agree. And do you mind sharing the ages that you have in your home or how many children you've been able to help in your home?

JT Szabo
Absolutely, been a foster parent for eight years. We have been fortunate enough to have adopted four children through foster care in the county system over that eight years. It is a busy house and like we say it's our zoo, but it has been a passion, and it has been tumultuous at times. It's a roller coaster of emotions. It's an experience that I'm not sure everybody would be able to do. Not everybody can do what we do, but everybody can be a part of our village and offer support. And that's so key to be able to do that because there are so many kids out in our community, in our neighborhood, that are in need. And it's really eye-opening when you do that.

Our oldest is 14, navigating typical teenage life. And our youngest is seven. So it has been an amazing experience. We're still actively fostering in the area and just providing whatever love and whatever resources we can. My wife and I always have a fun saying that love and food cure all. And for the kids that have come in and out of our home, a lot of them only come with maybe a trash bag with a couple of outfits. Some of them come with nothing at all. All of them come with trauma stress, and anxiety. And it's our job to love them unconditionally and let them thrive for who they are, and provide whatever resources we can to help them become their potential.

Tibby Starks
Well, I thank you for taking care of everyone that you can; and opening up your home in such a beautiful way. I agree that not everybody can do this type of work, but to your point, it takes a village. And I'm sure for you, you can probably list all the ways that your community members have needed to step in, even if it's just respite care, which is of course, a time away from the children. For those of us who aren't foster parents respite as somebody that can step in and babysit and do overnights for foster youth.

So getting back to Daybreak before I get too far away from that, you mentioned and we're talking about community here and something that I was hoping our listeners would be interested in would be to help Daybreak, support Daybreak in whatever way they can, of course. Donations, I'm sure, are, like you mentioned, always welcome. Are there any other ways that people, I think you had like a Amazon wish list, possibly. Is that something that people might be able to help with?

JT Szabo
Yeah, we have many different ways that you can support what we do. We try to meet everyone where they're at, and that includes our supporters, whether they're able to financially contribute to our mission or if it's an in-kind donation. Perfect example, we have a really close knit relationship with a local nonprofit organization called Have a Gay Day. Here in Dayton, they are going nationwide here and they are based in Dayton. They are an LGBTQ advocacy group founded by Michael Note. And he actually just stopped by this morning as I was getting ready for our podcast and delivered a crate full of Halloween candy, leftover from, they had an event last night, and the first thought they had was, we're gonna take it to David's place, we're gonna take it to Daybreak, because we know that they're a place that can provide this candy, even if it's just a chocolate bar. That means so much to a youth that maybe has never been trick or treating that maybe is food insecure. And so just having a box of, and there was some really weird stuff too. There was oat milk vegan chocolate, I think at one point and stuff that I had never tried before that was phenomenal as I was kind of rifling through the crate this morning. But just in-kind donations like that. We have a partnership with ConAgra Foods north of Dayton in Troy they produce Slim Jims. That's the factory that makes all the Slim Jims in the entire world is just 15 minutes away from our doorstop in downtown Dayton. It is a huge factory in Troy right off of 75 and they provide us boxes of Slim Jims. And as silly as it sounds, just being able to go up to a youth that maybe is having a cruddy day and just here, have a slim gym. You know, and just it's not the item, it's the compassion behind it.

Tibby Starks
Exactly. It's compassion, guys. That's what we're talking about here. Bringing it back to compassion. It could be a simple gesture. We talked about how just listening and maybe not even giving the advice, even if it's in our head just listening. So I wanna empower our listeners to be compassionate in all the ways that they can. It doesn't always have to mean that you have financial means. So I appreciate you helping us understand what Daybreak is, how important it is, what's going on with these young people in our own communities, because this is happening in all of the communities to your point across the United States. So I thank you for what you're doing at Daybreak. I thank you for being here. And I thank you for what you're doing at home.

JT Szabo
And yeah, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to be able to share some of these stories and knowing that there is a need and there might be somebody listening right now that could provide that same service in their own community and pay that forward. And there's always gonna be the need. And I had a gentleman just last week tell me he'd been donating financially to Daybreak for 27 years. And he's in his 80s, he's retired. And I asked him point blank, why have you done this every month, like a clock for 27 years? And he looked at me and he was an old army vet and very serious gaze, looked me right in the eye and said, because they're the future of America. That's why. And it gave me chills when he said that because he was dead serious. That was an investment in the future of a country that he fought for, that he risked his life for, and he sees the value in that. And it's because of passion, compassion and empathy like that, that we're able to do what we do.

Tibby Starks
Absolutely. So if we're working with youth, CASAs out there who may be in the area, how can they help direct a youth from Ohio to your services?

JT Szabo
Yeah, there are a handful of organizations scattered across Ohio. I believe there's some in Northeast Ohio. There's some in Central Ohio. Not exactly a duplicate of services that we provide, but at least here in Southwest Ohio, referrals are always excellent. Our doors are open 24/7 here at our South Patterson location in Dayton. For CASAs, caseworkers particularly, law enforcement professionals, GALs for that matter that are looking for ways to help the youth that they're working with, a simple search. Sometimes you can find resources that...you may not have known about. Some of these organizations are small, very grassroots, do not have a large marketing budget to spread the message. And what we've found is a lot of word of mouth is key, particularly within people that work in the child welfare sector. Here, for example, in Southwest Ohio, there's an organization that started just north of Dayton called Seeds of Hope. There are a couple other organizations, there's Hannah's Closet in Dayton. But they specifically work with foster kinship and adoptive families to provide resources, whether it's clothing for a placement that just came at the last minute that came with nothing, cribs, beds for kinship placements that are getting family members so that they can provide housing and resources, ideally so that they don't end up homeless. And so there's a lot of organizations all working together. We talked about the Village. The village is very important in what we do, and we are all committed to the same thing.


Tibby Starks That's beautiful. JT, where can we find Daybreak, and your website, and your social media?

JT Szabo
Yes. So, most of our information can be found on what we do at daybreakdaton.org. We also have all of the social media pages that you could ever choke down, including threads. I don't know if anybody is still on threads, but we're there, and we're sharing the message of what we do. We just recently released a video series of some of our long-time donors telling the story on why Daybreak is important to them and how they give back and everybody does it differently. And we're going to be featuring a lot of things coming up here now that we're kind of accelerating into this next phase of what Daybreak is. And so I encourage everybody, check us out at daybreakdaton.org, like us on Facebook, Instagram, watch us on YouTube, certainly to get more information on what we do. And then we also have a separate social media profile for our David's Place LGBTQ programming. And that can be found on Facebook and Instagram at davidsplace@daybreak. So we try to keep it simple on where you can find us because there is a lot of good information out there, even if you're not in Southwest Ohio, that maybe could spur thought on how to duplicate these services in California, or Wyoming, or wherever you happen to be, there's guaranteed to be youth in your neighborhood that could really use help. 

Tibby Starks
Yes, and that is the message, right? Sometimes we think, you know, oh, well, that's not really happening in my small town, right? But it is happening. 

JT Szabo
It is and it will continue unless we do something. 

Tibby Starks 
Absolutely. Well, JT, thank you so much for being a part of the solution and helping me let people know that they can be part of the solution because it takes a village, as we keep harping on here. So again, I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you know the time that you took out of your day at Daybreak and you know from your family that seems to be ever growing. So.  And hopefully we'll have the opportunity to do this again. 

JT Szabo
Absolutely. I would love to be able to give an update. 

Tibby Starks
Awesome. That would be great. I appreciate you. Thank you so much, JT. 

I want to thank JT and Daybreak for bringing this information to us today and helping us learn all about what's going on in our communities. I also want to thank you for being interested in what's going on with youth who need our support.

I invite you to follow us on Instagram @FosteringCompassionPod, and feel free to email me at tibby@fosteringcompassionpod.com. I'd love to hear from you, and I invite you to give us a review so that more people can listen to the show.