It took 200 applications, but Ashley Angel had an announcement to make at last week’s community breakfast at Urban Peak.
“I finally got a job,” the 18-year-old proudly told two dozen other homeless teens living in a shelter on Denver’s South Acoma Street.
Angel will work at a discount store. The job won’t pay much. Angel is still working on her GED. She doesn’t have an employment history. But helping run a store is a big step for someone who lived with friends, on the streets and in shelters for nearly two years.
The important thing about Angel is that she doesn’t see herself as chronically homeless. That is the mission of Urban Peak. It is why the program for young people with no place to go is so critical to Denver’s plan to end homelessness.
Urban Peak offers more than three hots and a cot. It offers structure and alternatives to becoming beggars, hustlers or worse. It offers hope.
Most of the 38 young people now living in Urban Peak’s bunk-bed packed dormitory aren’t planning to be there until they age out at 21.
“Living in a shelter is not that great,” said Urban Peak chief executive Craig Archibald. “Kids don’t want to stay. They really believe there’s a future for them. The longer you’re homeless, the less you believe that.”
Sustaining optimism is not easy.
Roughly four in 10 young people at Urban Peak end up back on the streets. About 30 to 40 percent retain jobs after a year. Many teens must return to the program three or four times.
“It is not a straight-line process, for sure,” Archibald said.
But it is doable.
At Urban Peak, teens pursue personal- care plans, including academic schooling, as well as job-readiness and job-retention classes, said employment/education coordinator Michael Burson.
This can be as basic as getting a Social Security card and a picture ID or as sophisticated as taking the Ansell-Casey Independent Living Skills test.
Using government and donated dollars, Burson and other Urban Peak staffers help shelter residents get everything from health care to employment to the Holy Grail of just about every kid in the place: an apartment.
Like the proverbial apple used to butter up the teacher, a piece of fruit rests on the table in Urban Peak’s “GED room.” Surrounding it are walls covered with snapshots of young people in caps and gowns.
Urban Peak “graduates” about 100 teenagers a year, Burson said. On Thursday, another group received general equivalency diplomas and other recognition at a ceremony at the Denver Convention Center. Just like a regular high school.
Only very irregular things drive people to Urban Peak. Family drug and alcohol abuse. Domestic violence. Mental-health problems. Many have been in adult shelters, which they say are much less safe.
Some teens, such as 18-year-old Diana Zubchenok, dream of going home to finish high school.
Others, like 19-year-old Thomas Shelley, have no home to return to. Shelley “stayed along Colfax Avenue” with his family at ages 11 and 12. Then, he was part of a nonprofit program, Boys Hope, for seven years. Newly arrived at Urban Peak, he’s still looking for the edge that will let him reach his goal of being a screenwriter. For now, he makes smoothies for near-minimum wage and bunks with strangers.
“I don’t really see myself as homeless,” he said. “I’m going to manage.”
That’s because Shelley has seen firsthand the contempt reserved for the middle-aged men begging by the roadside.
“The single male homeless that are panhandling, that’s a lot harder,” he said. “People get mad at them. This is capitalism; you’ve got to rise up.”
Even with the help of a place like Urban Peak, finding your inner phoenix takes more than effort. It takes time.
The newly employed Ashley Angel is thinking up to a year.
“Long enough,” she said, “to save some money.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@ denverpost.com.
