Village House: Urgent Appeal

In October 2022, the Village at Ithaca took a huge leap and opened our largest responsive programming effort ever: Village House, a 9-bed transitional housing program for homeless youth ages 14-24. Over the last two years, we have housed 15 homeless youth, all of whom are now either in stable independent housing or currently still residing in our program.

Update Regarding Village House Below:

Village House has been made possible through the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project, a funding stream through the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, which awarded us a 2-year contract to operate the program and provide supportive services to homeless youth in our community. We found out yesterday, October 2nd, that the funding received by the Village at Ithaca, for Village House, has been terminated effective October 31st. Continued funding for Village House is contingent on finding another agency to take on its administration before that date.

While we have great respect and appreciation for the other human services providers in our area, we know that no other agency is equipped to take over a low-barrier, crisis shelter program like ours in such a short period of time, which means that homeless youth will have even fewer options for immediate shelter come November 1st.

With your support, we have already raised enough money to cover our November rent. We are so grateful to our individual donors and the incredible faith-based communities who have rallied to help keep young people housed.

We are not willing to turn young people out into the cold. Our goal is to raise enough private funding to cover our expenses long enough to secure additional sources of state or local funding to sustain the program long term.

Can you help us make it at least through 2024? Any contribution of any amount makes a difference!

If you want more information about Village House including testimonials from current and past participants please click here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W2_jtKMp2iIWcTKjUmH81S7iGnTFNuA-/view?usp=sharing

Our team is open to any discussions, ideas or questions as well. Please reach out to Meryl Phipps Executive Director at Village at Ithaca or Jess Brock Housing Fellow and Development Coordinator at any time.