Newsmakers: How Brooklyn Avenues for Youth Influenced New Minneapolis Shelter

Avenues for Youth recently opened a new facility in Minneapolis that’s estimated to help more than 300 youth each year.

“We are really excited to be opening our new housing and headquarters in north Minneapolis. We have been there since 1997, and the building that we are in we have outgrown substantially,” explained Katherine Meerse, executive director of Avenues for Youth. “We are also really inspired by our Brooklyn Park facility which we call Brooklyn Avenues.”

The new facility officially opened on July 30, and will increase the number of homeless youth served from 300 to 500 annually. There will be 20 shelter and transitional living beds that provide each resident with a separate bedroom and access to non-gendered, individual bathrooms. There will also be two emergency overnight beds.

Avenues for Youth is located at 1404 8th Ave. N., in Minneapolis.

The facility is inspired by Brooklyn Avenues in Brooklyn Park.

“When Brooklyn Avenues opened in 2014, we immediately started seeing young people at Brooklyn Avenues were more successful than our young people at Minneapolis Avenues,” said Meerse. “They were staying with us longer and were making progress toward their goals. They were more likely to exit to stable housing when they left us to move into their own homes, and we started looking at what’s the difference?”

Meerse said the demographics, programming and staff were the same between the two locations, but the difference was in the building itself. 

“The building really makes a difference,” said Meerse. “Brooklyn Avenues was purpose-built to be a shelter and transitional housing program. It has single bedrooms, individual bathrooms and some trauma-informed design elements.”

Meerse said Brooklyn Avenues “inspired” them to build the new facility.

There’s also new programming in the works at the Brooklyn Avenues facility in Brooklyn Park, which will include a new full-time outreach worker to help connect youth with resources in the northwest suburbs. 

Interior space at Avenues for Youth in Minneapolis

Brooklyn Center | Brooklyn Park | Twin Cities

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