Youth Connection remodel awaits OK

The Youth Connection has submitted building permits to the City of Shelton to remodel its two-story building at 2nd and Cota streets that will include 12 apartments upstairs for homeless youths ages 18-24.

The almost $7 million project is projected to be completed by the end of 2025, with an opening in January 2026. If the building permits are approved, Youth Connection will then put the project out for constriction bids, said Susan Kirchoff, executive director of the nonprofit organization.

The upper floor of the building is now mostly empty. The plan calls for 12 bedrooms for homeless Mason County people between the ages of 18 and 24, and a studio apartment. It will also feature two restrooms with showers, a laundry, a kitchen, a dining area, an entertainment room and two business offices.

Planned renovations and additions on the first floor include a coffee cafe will be constructed just to the right of the building’s entry, another full kitchen and two full restrooms.

The building at 123 Third St. was constructed in 1924. Before the COVID pandemic struck, the organization planned only to make changes upstairs at the cost of about $1.6 million, Kirchoff said.

“The building is so old we have to upgrade the whole building,” Kirchoff said. She added, “We’re building a 12-bedroom house.”

The organization was founded in 2018 as the Shelton Family Center and was inspired by an afterschool program called The Connection Point. On its website, the organization states that “during our engagement with schools, we identified several pressing needs among the youth, including homelessness, hunger, family troubles and exposure to domestic violence.”

The drop-in center received grants from the Washington Youth and Families Fund, Mason County and Youth Homeless Demonstration Project.

The Youth Connection helps young people with housing support, internet access, hygiene items and clothing, outdoor survival gear and secure storage. It provides a safe supervised space, meals, life-skills training, case management and connections to additional resources. Patrons play games, create art and perform music.

Four years ago, the organization opened a second drop-in center at Belfair Landing in Belfair offering the same services. It also established six off-site emergency shelter houses and initiated a rental assistance program.

Now, 89 young people are signed up as at-risk youth or homeless and receive such services as emergency shelter and case management, Kirchoff said. Youth Connection has 19 employees.

When the 12 rooms become available to people ages 18 to 24, there will be “low to no barriers,” Kirchoff said. They must be Mason County residents.

“The idea is we provide options and guidance for them,” she said.

Kirchoff is no stranger to the challenges her clients are experiencing. When she was 10 or 11, her parents moved with their three children from Louisiana to Washington and lived at campgrounds for seven months. Kirchoff recalls asking, “Are we ever going to get a house?”

When Kirchoff was 17, her mother kicked her out of the house the day after she graduated from high school. For a year and half, she had to fend for herself.

“I understand the desperateness,” she said.