YESS asks Nevis City Council for support

Park Rapids Enterprise. 1/11/24, Lorie Skarpness

Kori Nelson, director of Youth Emergency Shelter & Support (YESS), asked the Nevis City Council to be part of the community effort to open a shelter in Hubbard County at their meeting on Monday, Jan. 8.

The mission of YESS is to create a program to meet the needs of young people in need of housing, especially those not eligible for help from other programs.

Nelson said statistics show that there are 550,000 homeless youth in the U.S. and 6,000 in Minnesota. She said a lack of foster homes in Hubbard County means youth who are homeless often are sent out of the area to obtain safe shelter.

“We want to provide a full range of services for homeless youth in Hubbard County,” she said. “It truly does take a village to make a nonprofit grow. We are working with the United Way of Bemidji and many community groups in Hubbard County.”

Nelson told the story of a homeless teen in Hubbard County who went to an area church for help. “Imagine what we can do with a shelter.”

The next steps are to survey area youth to find out how many are homeless and obtain funding for a shelter.

“We’re looking for a location for an emergency shelter for youth and working on a long-term solution,” she said. “This is a problem in Hubbard County and here in Nevis.”

She encouraged the council to consider ways to help the project progress, including donating tax-forfeited land within the city.