GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Ja-Quari Moore-Bass is happy to give you a tour of AYA Youth Collective and its drop-in center on State Street SE. He knows everything by heart—the massive common area, the dining area, the music room, the laundry room, and the showers.
"We are an organization that focuses solely on supporting young people, so people between the ages of 14 and 24. Our biggest thing is making sure that they have the support they need to navigate adulthood, the transition into adulthood," he said.
That difficulties of that transition is something Ja-Quari has first-hand experience with.
"When I was 19 years old, my mother and I, we ended up living in separate places. She moved across the country, and she was on her own journey. And then part of my journey here was finishing high school, and then figuring what I'm doing for housing," he said.
Ja-Quari says when people think of homelessness they usually only think about people living on the street. But in his words, "homelessness doesn't have a look."
"I was a model student. I did everything I was supposed to do. I've continued to do everything I was supposed to do the right way, and things just didn't work out. I was no longer living with my family. I lived in someone's basement, and then was couch hopping for a while,' he said.
Ja-Quari and a number of his peers put their heads together, and talked about what they needed in life.
"We as young people put in so much input. We molded what a lot of these things were supposed to look like—how to talk to us, what to do to make us feel safe, what to do to make us feel comfortable. And we created 3:11 Youth Housing with that model. And then I not only became a co-founder, I was one of the first youth in the home," he said.
"Once we got our first house, and we fixed everything up, and I finally got an address, and I finally got a phone. I got a job. I got my GED. I got my driver's license. I couldn't have done any of those things without being housed first."
Then in 2020, 3:11 Youth Housing merged with Grand Rapids HQ to create AYA Youth Collective.
"Our drop-in space is huge, allowing people to come in for two hours at a time, even just to hang out," Ja-Quari said.
"We're really intentional about making sure that we use warm colors, that we create a welcoming space when young people come here. When anybody comes here, we want them to feel welcome. We want them to feel like they're welcome here, they're safe here, and this is the closest place to home they can be."
AYA provides two meals a day for young people and connects them with resources, for free, that they might otherwise have to pay for. In addition to the drop-in center, the organization offers a housing program that pairs members with unpaid mentors. The housing program does not put limits on how long people can stay.
"I hear often from young people that there are some places that will say 'You only get a certain amount of time here, and then you have to figure out what you're doing for housing.' But housing is something that takes a long time. Housing is something that is not a short process, and because of that, it's hard to put a time limit on that for someone," Ja-Quari said.
"Housing instability, whatever that looks like for you, that's what we want to work on. That's what we want to figure out how to make better—how to make stable."
There are many ways to help AYA. They need volunteers, monetary donations, and items from their Amazon Wish List. But Ja-Quari says one of the biggest things is to see the drop-in center for yourself.
"I personally think everybody should try to spend time in the space. Everybody should come and do a tour in the space. Try to volunteer in the space. Connect with us any way they possibly can," he said.
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