Homelessness ends here

Avenues partners with youth experiencing homelessness to achieve their dreams.

Young adults in the Twin Cities struggling with homelessness are welcome at Avenues. We have two shelters that are a haven of support, with resources and community-building that help our residents find a sustainable path for living their best lives. We also connect host homes with specific youth demographics that homelessness hits harder than others, such as LGBTQ and black and brown youth.

Our Communities

We've been a part of communities throughout Hennepin County for 25 years. We currently have shelters in Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park and work directly with people throughout the metro to welcome LGBTQ youth into their homes as a part of our ConneQT program. Each of these options provides a place to stay as well as resources that help young people find a path out of homelessness.

Guiding Principles

In 2014, we collaborated with Catholic Charities, Face to Face, Lutheran Social Services, The Salvation Army, and YouthLink to outline principles that serve as the approach to our work. The principles begin with the perspective that youth are on a journey; all of our interactions with youth are filtered through that journey perspective. This means we must be trauma-informed, non-judgmental, and work to reduce harm. By holding these principles, we can build a trusting relationship that allows us to focus on youths’ strengths and opportunities for positive development. Through all of this, we approach youth as whole beings through a youth-focused collaborative system of support.

People First

The relationships formed during someone’s stay with Avenues are just as important as the physical shelter we provide. Building trust, one person at a time, requires a special ability to embody passion, empathy, and problem-solving skills into a resource that young people can readily tap into. While we realize that we may not be able to end homelessness and that the complicated systems that feed poverty are often overwhelming, we take tremendous pride in our tenacious ability to nurture trust and hope for the youth we partner with.

Be the place where youth remember their journey with homelessness ended

Youth homelessness persists because of complicated factors like systemic oppression, racism, poverty, and homophobia. While naming these is important, centering racial and social justice means being actively opposed to the reasons and passionately working to end youth homelessness in our community.

Utilizing nine evidence-based guiding principles, we embed ourselves in the neighborhoods where we work. Concurrently, advocacy, lobbying, and strategic partnerships with other agencies and community leaders foster a holistic outlook on our response to urgent needs (meaning, how we connect with youth that need help right now) and how we take proactive actions to prevent homelessness in the first place.

At the end of the day, it’s all about people. The young adults and our staff form unique bonds, and we embrace our differences. We understand that in addition to the basic needs and support during someone’s stay with us, the relationships that form play a big part in someone’s success f what comes after staying with us. Our passion for helping youth is fueled by our hope to be the place where young people remember their journey with homelessness coming to an end.