JASMYN, Inc.

Mission: JASMYN supports and empowers LGBTQ young people by creating safe space, providing health and wholeness services, and offering youth development opportunities, while bringing people and resources together to promote equality and human rights.

JASMYN provides LGBTQ+ young people ages 13 - 23 with the services they need to affirm their identity, overcome obstacles, and thrive as young adults. JASMYN's campus in Brooklyn/Riverside includes:

• The Youth Center building ("J1"), which serves as an outreach venue with a broad range of innovative programs. This safe space and engaging atmosphere supports creating a peer network, socializing, connecting with supportive adults, and participating in a variety of youth development and health education programs. J1 includes the David Bohnett CyberCenter, with five computer workstations and high-speed internet connectivity, along with JASMYN's food and hygiene pantries.
• The JASMYN Services Center building ("J2") supports intensive, wrap-around case management and health navigation services for high-risk, HIV+, and homeless youth. It also includes JASMYN's weekly Sexual Health Clinic, offered through collaboration with the Florida Department of Health - Duval County, and a primary care clinic in partnership with the Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). Here youth find access to STI testing, treatment and PrEP.
• In Development: The JASMYN Safety Net Resource Center ("J3"), opening Summer 2019, will support youth experiencing homelessness. Plans include private showers, laundry facility, mailboxes, document storage, a warming kitchen for meal service, and accessible counseling / case management space to best serve the more than 200 housing insecure young people served annually on our campus. Getting into stable housing will enable these young people to focus on their health and mental health needs and the JASMYN team will be there to link them to HIV care, substance abuse treatment, and mental health services that help young people thrive.

A healthy JASMYN is a healthy Jacksonville! And we know housing is prevention for so many of the physical and mental health challenges youth face when they are without shelter. Our wrap-around support model encompasses meeting each young person where they are, and customizing the response to support their health and wholeness today and for the future.

Through the incredible support of local philanthropists, a third building behind our existing campus has been donated to support the young people we proudly serve. As there is not a day shelter in our town for folks experiencing homelessness, young people in temporary shelters have nowhere to go during the day but the streets. With your help, that will soon change! We plan to renovate the donated building to meet the basic daytime needs of young people who find themselves without safe, permanent housing.

Youth will have mailboxes of their own, document lockers to store identification, private showers and laundry room, a kitchen where volunteers will serve hot meals daily, new counseling rooms for one-on-one services, and space for an expanded team of case managers to work with the 200+ young people who are housing insecure that we serve each year. While they are here, a visit to our health clinic will provide them with nurse triage to primary care and behavioral health support, harm reduction sexual health education, HIV counseling and testing, and so much more.

Through an expanded partnership with the Youth Crisis Center, an overnight shelter with up to 14 beds is being renovated for stabilization support while permanent housing is secured. Our case management team will ensure youth navigate all available support safely, with an eye on safe, stable housing within 45 days of intake. With your help, we can reach "functional zero" youth homelessness in Jacksonville by 2020!