Marsha and Marian’s Neighbors: Youth shared-housing program could be national model
Using “radical imagination,” VCU School of Social Work faculty Maurice Gattis, Ph.D., and M. Alex Wagaman, Ph.D., and their collaborators have developed a youth shared-housing model in Richmond unlike any in the country.
“There are just so few evidence-informed, co-designed interventions for this population,” says Dr. Wagaman, who is now serving a one-year term as special advisor on youth homelessness to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Marsha and Marian’s Neighbors has successfully served more than 40 local households with individuals ages 18-24 who identify as LGBTQIA+, pregnant and/or parenting. As the program enters its fourth and final year of funding – more than $2.25 million total – from Virginia Housing Trust Fund Homeless Reduction Grants, Drs. Gattis and Wagaman are working to transition management from the school to the community.
“This program is a real contribution, and we’re excited to see how the community can implement it or embrace it,” Dr. Wagaman says.
Dr. Gattis says Marsha and Marian’s Neighbors is the rare program that relies on lived experience and then rolls that into leadership opportunities.
“This doesn’t happen in places – the idea of who’s involved,” he says. “It has come full circle. We’re now at a place where we have graduates [former residents] who have transitioned to our advisory board and are informing the future of the program. That’s big.”
» See the full story at VCU News.
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