San Diego Youth Services believes every child deserves to reach their full potential. Since our founding 50 years ago, we have changed the lives of almost 770,000 youth.

What we do

We provide intensive services to more than 28,000 youth every year. San Diego Youth Services offers a continuum of care for children and youth from infancy to age 25. We aim to:

Meet the basic needs of youth

Hunger, poverty and youth homelessness are on the rise for many youth and their families today. We help meet these basic needs for youth. What could be more vital than food and shelter? We provide safe places to live and long-term solutions through shelter, foster homes, community centers and housing.

Create positive connections

We help youth focus on positive life changes and healthy relationships as part of providing needed resources and services. San Diego Youth Services has long provided foster homes and adoption support services for families considering adopting a youth in the foster care system.

Help youth develop life skills

In addition to a range of safe and stable housing options, we offer support to help youth develop the independent living skills necessary to become self-sufficient and keep off the streets.

Promote overall health and well-being

Early intervention and care for the whole child are critical. We provide a broad continuum of services to help youth overcome trauma and challenges that put them at risk, including case management, counseling, mental health treatment and educational support and resources.
San Diego is the third most expensive city in America with a growing population of homeless young adults and difficult challenges to be self-sufficient. These Transition Age Youth are between the ages of 16 and 25, single and parenting that are homeless or at-risk of homelessness and learning how to survive in the adult world.

At any given time, youth make up 12 percent of San Diego County’s homeless population of about 8,000, which is higher than veterans at 10 percent and families at 3 percent. By providing youth a safe and comfortable home environment, they can quickly establish a sense of safety, connect with others and begin to reach out to schools, jobs and other resources so they can become self-sufficient.

San Diego Youth Services is committed to providing safe affordable housing and independent living and job training skills to Transition Age Youth, empowering them to become independent and reach their highest potential. For the last 50 years, SDYS has changed the lives of 770,000 youth.

SDYS’ Transitional Housing Program allows young adults to move into an apartment at one of SDYS’ Transitional Living Communities, while giving them the necessary resources they need to develop life skills and empower youth on their path to an independent future.

SDYS Transitional Living Communities are in safe neighborhoods, accessible to public transportation, and have on-site residential managers available to the youth 24 hours a day for emergencies and support.

Transition Age Youth and their children live within their community from 18 to 30 months and are provided case management and other supportive services including Parenting Classes, Health and Nutrition, Budgeting and Independent Living Skills so that they may grow and achieve their personal goals in life. Youth must be productive 32 hours every week both working, in school, or combination of both, and attend our skills workshops. They must have a verifiable income to pay their rent (job, financial aid, cash aid, etc.) and pay on a monthly basis (rent is based on a sliding scale; most youth pay $166 per month, up to $500). Our residents must pass bi-weekly apartment inspections for cleanliness. Most importantly, youth start planning and saving for their independent departure from the moment they move-in.

SDYS takes great pride in providing clean and well-maintained Transitional Living Communities, offering nurturing home environments for our young adults and their children. Funding and budgets are in place and fiscally managed for repair, painting and needed improvements in utilizing these single housing units. However, these units are unfurnished and there is little to no funding in order to furnish these apartments or provide basic necessities youth need to get established in a new home.

The PEERS Project’s contribution to SDYS’ Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project supports the lives of several youth who have been struggling with homelessness. Each youth will have their own pillow to lay their head and their own supplies to learn to live responsibly.

Thanks to community members like PEERS, SDYS now serves 28,000 children and young adults at more than 100 community locations annually. It is the support and compassion that allows SDYS to continue to build futures for another 50 years. Donations like yours provides a youth or young family with move-in necessities turning an empty apartment into a home, many times, their first one.