Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
Elevate Youth Services in Barre has received a $500,000 endowment gift to support youth homelessness services, the organization announced earlier this month. Leadership said the donation, which comes from the Burlington-based Courtney and Victoria Buffum Family Foundation, will provide the nonprofit a much-needed financial cushion and help enable continued services for young people experiencing housing insecurity.
Elevate operates a number of housing services primarily for youth aged 18 to 24, including 16 emergency shelter beds, six transitional housing placements and a rent voucher program, and also runs a five-bed facility for minors in state custody. The nonprofit serves roughly 400 youths in Washington County each year, said Executive Director Favor Ellis, and leads several statewide programs supporting other providers and assisting current or former foster care charges.
Ellis said that at present, her team is most focused on expanding the suite of services for youth in its care, including mental health and substance use counseling and basic supplies like food.
Youth homelessness is an ongoing concern in Vermont, according to housing advocates. Last year, one statewide count estimated nearly 1,400 youth under 25 were experiencing some form of homelessness. More than 200 children currently reside in time-limited emergency housing placements provided by the state, officials reported last month.
Nearly all the young people Ellis serves present with some form of mental health condition, she said, often connected to trauma earlier in life. That could include domestic violence, or expulsion from a family home due to gender identity or sexuality, she said.
In general, she added, these young people’s struggles are inherited: “intergenerational poverty, intergenerational homelessness, intergenerational mental illness.” The goal at Elevate, Ellis said, is to build a new sense of community among residents in the nonprofit’s shared living spaces.
“Our mission is to help young people live the lives that they want to live,” she said.
Despite recent expansions, Elevate “almost always” has a waiting list for its shelter facilities, according to Ellis.
The new financial backstop — and annual return of roughly $25,000 — afforded by the endowment is well-timed, Ellis said. Beyond the normal instability of yearly grant renewals, she said, federal grant applications have changed dramatically under the Trump administration.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides funding for some programs at Elevate, Ellis said, and federal officials have been clear that some services — including harm reduction strategies around substance use and treatment “specific to gender” — are no longer a priority for funding.
“We serve all youth, regardless of identity,” Ellis said. “It’s hard to talk about that in this current funding environment.”
But now, Ellis is eyeing Elevate’s future projects with new confidence, she said — the Buffum family’s donation is a sign of trust, a valuable gift in itself.
Elevate added two new eight-bed shelter spaces on the former campus of Goddard College last summer, and is opening a new “drop-in” outreach center for teenagers in Barre, she said. An initial grant of $25,000 from the Buffum foundation while the first year of endowment returns accrue will primarily cover the cost of food for young people in the nonprofit’s care, Ellis added.
Lily Sojourner, who leads the Vermont Department for Children and Family’s Office of Economic Opportunity, said philanthropic gifts can allow service providers to stick to their mission rather than being bound to shifts in public funding priorities. A diverse set of funding streams is always the most stable scenario for this kind of organization, she added, and it’s common for Vermont providers to rely on community donations alongside public money.
“I think Vermont’s really fortunate to have a lot of engaged community members who want to help their neighbors,” she said. “We’ve seen that for years.”
