GRAND RAPIDS..MICH — Ja-Quari Moore knows firsthand the difficulties of housing instability for high school students. As a senior in 2011, he found himself "couch hopping" and scrambling to find a place to stay after his mother moved across the country.
"It was just a lot of back and forth, couch hopping and figuring out how many days I can stay here or how long I can stay somewhere else," Moore said.
Determined to complete his education, Moore decided to remain in Michigan, even without his mother's support.
"I'm going to stay here. I'm going to finish this out. But that, of course, meant that I was going to be here without, without her," Moore said.
Moore's personal struggle with housing insecurity inspired him to help create AYA Youth Collective, formerly known as 311 Youth Housing, to support students facing similar challenges. The organization secured its first house through donations in 2012.
"Within a week of me getting an address, I had a job and was able to start there," Moore said.
Over the years, AYA Youth Collective has expanded its efforts, now providing housing, meals, educational support and transportation for hundreds of students ages 14-24 in the Grand Rapids area.
"We have 12 supporting housing homes here in Grand Rapids, and in our homes, we have just actually expanded to 35 beds, and we are building another home where we're going to have four additional beds," said Nokomi Schultz, the organization's advancement manager.
In the past year, the organization has served 792 unique youth through its drop-in center.
As a youth outreach specialist, Moore now works to connect students with support systems before they face housing instability, so they don't have to experience the challenges he did.
"With the role I do now, my role as an outreach specialist is to go into schools and communicate with young people prior to or during their time of transition, so that they have a support system before I did so they don't have to go through everything that I did, the way that I had to," Moore said.
Moore sees echoes of his own story in the students he works with, and he's committed to helping them find stability.
"In every single one of the youth that I communicate with, there's I can see a little piece of my story in theirs," Moore said.
For more information on the program, you can visit
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