Y-Files
October 03, 2007 04:23 PM
Youth Speak
By: Jessie Worobey
Many youth in Sutton are unhappy with the placement of the Georgina Youth Shelter and have banded together to create a group on Facebook, a social chat site titled, “Get the shelter out of Sutton”.
So far, 428 people, most of whom are Sutton youth, agree with the creator of the group, who didn’t want his name used for fear of reprisal, in his efforts to get youth heard.
The Georgina Youth Shelter was placed in the wrong town, is the general consensus of most youth logged onto the site.
“There is no way for them to get around, barely any jobs and nothing to keep them busy,” said Stevie Harrison, a former Sutton District High School student.
Loitering has been a big issue since the shelter was put in Sutton, but that is expected when you place youth in a town where there is little else to do, many students are saying.
“At the beginning, there were problems with loitering, but after about 100 times of telling them to leave, they left,” says an employee working near the shelter, who wishes not to be named.
There is limited transportation in Sutton and little opportunities for jobs.
It appears that by placing the shelter in Sutton, the youths have been taken from the streets, given a place to sleep and then put back on the streets.
The shelter would have been better suited in a bigger town with more opportunities for these youth to start a better life, site comments contend.
“Youth from the shelter intimidate people.
“Members of my gym will not leave alone when youth from the shelter are loitering outside,” said Katie McIlveen, owner of It’s a Great Pace fitness centre.
Sutton residents should not have to be afraid to walk down the streets of their town, she added.
Stereotypes
It is understood youth from the shelter have gotten some of their bad reputation from stereotypes.
In fact, many youth interviewed for this article didn’t want their names published for fear of reprisal.
Some shelter youth have, however, earned the negativity people feel toward them.
“They confront people walking past them, yelling things at them,” a high school student said.
“The kids at the shelter seem like troublemakers because they just loiter around stores and sidewalks, taking up space, instead of contributing to our community,” student Scott Sedore said.
Contributing to the community is exactly what they need to be doing.
Instead of loitering, they should be getting jobs.
If they cannot get jobs, they should be volunteering at places around the community.
They would not be getting bad reputations if they were helping out the town and youth would not have such a strong inclination to get the shelter out of Sutton.
“More supervision and strict rules” are needed to keep shelter youth from loitering and causing trouble, student Daniel Holborn said.
Many youth say more structured programming geared to volunteer work and helping them obtain jobs is needed at the shelter.
Not all students think having the shelter in town is a bad thing, however.
Sutton student Cassie Lawson, for example, said the shelter being in a small town is a good choice for troubled youth, adding there are other people in town who feel the same way.
In fact, on Facebook, there is a group entitled, “What can I do to help make the youth centre successful?”
This group is dedicated to helping make the shelter a better place.
So far, there are 26 members in this group and most are not area youth.
Young people have weighed in and say it is time for a change.
Jessie Worobey is a co-op student at Sutton District High School who aspires to be a journalist.