Bridge Over Troubled Waters (Bridge), an organization in Boston providing over 2,000 homeless, runaway, and at-risk youth each year with essential help that ranges from street outreach and survival aid services to life-skill building residential programming.  We provide youth with a place to do laundry, to eat a hot meal and learn how to make it.  Bridge also allows our youth to have a pillow under their head instead of a backpack. But we don’t stop there.  At all points along the path from homelessness to housing, we address educational and job paths, as well as mental health services and coping skills.  Sadly, youth homelessness is on the rise, which is why we need your assistance to fund this mission today.

“I’m currently staying at a friend’s house, but I can’t stay here much longer.”

“I aged out of foster care and would like to be independent.”

                           “I’m a 20-year-old college student, and I am currently homeless.”

The homeless and runaway youth who turn to Bridge have been hurt by the breakdown of their family or by the systems in our society. Family conflict over gender or sexual identity, abuse, domestic violence and substance use force many youth to choose the streets over an unsafe home. Others have lost parents and caregivers, spending years bouncing around the couches of acquaintances or foster homes.