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In the early 1980s, residents, businesspeople, and
social service providers in San Francisco’s Polk Gulch
began to realize that there were many young people
who were living on the streets of their neighborhood.
These were just kids, but they had nowhere to live and
no way to survive without resorting to theft, prostitution,
or the drug trade. For whatever reason, these kids’
families could not care for them. So in 1984, members
of the community stepped in and opened the Larkin
Street Drop-In Center to bring these homeless youth
back into the fold.
Today, over 20 years later, the Larkin Street Drop-In
Center has grown into Larkin Street Youth Services
(LSYS). As the issues affecting homeless youth have
changed, LSYS has evolved to address them. In 1988
we added a peer-based substance abuse treatment
program where kids could help other kids recover from
drug use. Five years after that we opened our 16-bed
Diamond Youth Shelter to provide safe temporary
housing for kids who before slept on the streets.
Shortly afterward we expanded our services to the
Haight Ashbury neighborhood with our Haight Street
Referral Center, and opened our Avenues to
Independence transitional living program. In 1997,
LSYS opened the nation’s first comprehensive housing
program for HIV+ youth, named Assisted Care. More
organizational growth followed with forward-thinking
strategic planning processes which guided our addition
of other housing programs and employment services.
When it comes to caring for youth on the streets, Larkin
Street Youth Services sets the standard, not only in
San Francisco but nationwide. We have received
numerous awards over the years, and organizations
from around the country look to us as a model of
innovative and effective service provision for homeless
and runaway young people. We give them more than
just temporary respite from life on the streets. We give
them the tools they need—through housing, medical
care, education, and job training—to permanently
reclaim their lives.
Larkin Street Timeline
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