The Maslow Project works to empower youth experiencing homelessness to thrive independently by fulfilling their basic needs, assisting with education and employment, and providing other support services including case management and permanent supportive housing. (It sits between RWN Foundation’s Oregon education, health, and sustainable communities priorities.)
Southern Oregon’s Jackson County had already been hit hard by the pandemic when the Alameda wildfire (September 2020) decimated the towns of Phoenix and Talent and destroyed 2600 homes, displacing many young people and their families. Moreover, even before the pandemic, the county had an exceptionally high number of unhoused youth, both in Medford and Ashland and spread across smaller towns and rural locations.
RWN Foundation’s general operating grant will help the Maslow Project to stabilize young people and families, including through the provision of additional case management and advocacy, mental health counseling that meets youth where they are (and in the languages they speak), and permanent supportive housing so that youth can move successfully through their education, employment, and lives.