Youth in need of shelter in Cambridge continue to leave the city to find temporary housing, often putting themselves at greater risk.
It's a problem local advocates say stems from a lack of public awareness, a lack of public acceptance and huge shortage of funding from all levels of government.
A young person from Cambridge who agreed to talk to CambridgeToday said he's housed in Kitchener's oneROOF shelter and knows all too well what it's like trying to find shelter in Cambridge.
CambridgeToday agreed to identify him as John out of concern for his safety.
"If there was a shelter in Cambridge where these young kids who are 15 or 16-years-old can get help, maybe they wouldn't end up like me," John said.
He has been living on the streets since he was 17 and has battled a drug addiction while struggling to find places to live in his hometown, suffering several overdoses in the process.
"I was in Cambridge, blacked out on fentanyl and they found me and brought me to the Bridges shelter. You can't be a drug user and stay there so they banned me," John said. "I had no other options in the city and started living on the streets and then eventually in Kitchener."
John said the lack of a shelter space for young people in Cambridge is driving teenagers into bad environments that are filled with drugs and illegal activity, often in cities they're not familiar with, exposing them to greater dangers.
Regional councillor for Cambridge Pam Wolf said youth beds may be nearly impossible to find in the city now, but hope is on the horizon for another underserved segment of the population as the YWCA builds a case to get funding for a women's shelter in Cambridge.
Wolf has been at the forefront of the affordable housing crisis for the last decade while trying to secure a youth and a women's shelter for Cambridge.
She points to a slew of problems when organizations try to create more space for youth shelters in the city.
"One of the main problems we're seeing is the funding," she said. "Unfortunately, there is no funding available in the region's budget and there is not much help from the other levels of government."
City tax dollars can't be used for housing, and most of the region's housing budget is allocated to shelters that serve adults.
"If you look at other provinces, there is $150 million in the budget that the province should be covering, but the region is on the hook for it. Imagine what we could do with that kind of money," said Wolf.
It's created a massive hill to climb for organizations like oneROOF, which operates the region's only youth shelter.
For the past few years, Sandy Dietrich-Bell, executive director of the Kitchener youth shelter, has been pleading with the region to allocate some of its annual budget to start a Cambridge location.
Each year she is met with the same answer; there is no money.
"I'm always in the ear of the region and Waterloo regional councillors reminding them that the youth who are homeless today will be the adults who are homeless tomorrow if we don't do more," she said.
"Personally, I feel if even one young person needs a shelter bed, that is sufficient, but from a financial perspective the numbers don't necessarily meet the threshold of need in their eyes."
In late 2022, oneROOF admitted 45 youth from Cambridge in three months, a number that Dietrich-Bell told CambridgeToday more than warrants a facility locally.
Previously, there was only one dedicated youth shelter operating in Cambridge, Argus, but it transitioned into a group home in 2018.
The Bridges Shelter in Cambridge will also take in youth as a last resort, but Wolf said this is not a safe option and the lack of spaces force homeless youth to travel to Kitchener or Waterloo to receive care or shelter.
"It doesn't work for them to leave the place where their school, friends and entire lives are, so to expect them to get to Kitchener just doesn't work," she said. "All this does is make them more vulnerable as they end up on the streets or in encampments; which are not a safe place for youth."
Wolf believes the region favours organizations that are central to serving Waterloo, Kitchener, Cambridge and the townships, but with the next round of budget talks coming up, she wants to make sure her constituents in Cambridge get their fair share.
The move to centralize services in Kitchener is not only doing a disservice to Cambridge residents, but also points to a lack of equality in what's provided here, she said.
"I am doing work with the YWCA to get a women's shelter set up in Cambridge and I am hoping we can find the funding, but we need a location. It's always about location, location, location," she said.
The regional councillor recently floated the idea of using some of the homes the region has to purchase along the route of the Stage 2 LRT for interim shelters.
A house that might be demolished in 10 years would be a ideal candidate, she said.
She said it would be easier ask of the provincial and federal governments for money if the region already had space.
NIMBYism is another obstacle advocates for shelter space have continually come up against in trying to find a suitable location in Cambridge, Wolf said.
More community support could make it happen.
John would like residents in Cambridge to educate themselves before casting judgment on those living on the streets or suffering from drug addition.
"I was a person who lived in apartments and houses and saw these people as what they are, people. We need more of that," he said.
