AUBURN — City and school officials are partnering with Midcoast-based Housing Resources for Youth to place unaccompanied minors in the city with host families, an attempt to address the rising number of young people who struggle with housing.

“The hope is that it will increase their ability to focus and function and increase their academics at school, whether that placement is short-term or long-term,” said social worker Sasha Anastasoff, Auburn schools’ McKinney-Vento liaison.

Housing Resources has predominantly worked in the communities served by Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Brunswick High School and Morse High School in Bath for the past 10 years since it was created. Auburn is the first municipality it has provided services to outside the midcoast region. The program in Auburn is funded with federal money through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

As of Wednesday, Auburn schools staff had identified 24 unaccompanied youth, 10 more than identified this time last school year, Anastasoff said. There were a total of 48 unaccompanied minors identified in the city last school year, a figure that has been trending upward in the past few years, and she does not see it getting any better this year.

The reasons minors leave their homes are numerous, she said. A few of those situations include students struggling with substance use in their homes and unsafe home situations, while others are kicked out or choose to leave because their parents do not accept them for “being who they are,” she said.

Pam Gormley, executive director of Housing Resources for Youth, said she sees many young people coming from those types of situations, and many other situations, seeking help from her organization.

The organization connects minors with host families in the community, she said. The organization vets families or individuals interested in hosting an unaccompanied minor through a process that includes home visits and background checks.

Volunteer families who take in minors do not receive a stipend from the organization, she said, unlike foster families that have minors placed with them through the state. Housing Resources looks for families who are willing to “open their heart and home.”

The organization does not place minors who are coming from a situation of abuse where a guardian, parent or parents are being charged with a crime, she said. Typically those young people are referred to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The organization placed 23 minors with host families in the midcoast area alone last year, she said. Families do not need to be the traditional two-parent households. Some host families are just one reliable adult with an open bedroom and a willingness to support a homeless minor.

It is important that students have a stable and safe place to stay outside of school in order to thrive inside school, Anastasoff said. Having a place where they can take a shower, have access to food and are supported by a caring adult advocating for their needs usually results in them doing better in school.

“If we can get those kids stabilized at home and they can access those things at school the hope is that they will be better off,” she said.

Housing Resources places an emphasis on helping unaccompanied minors graduate high school because that will help them be successful in the workforce as adults, Gormley said. To help minors graduate from high school, they need to have a home life that is safe and supportive, so host families need to be able to support students through school and extracurricular activities.

So far, the organization has not had a host family reject a minor or state that it would not host a minor again, Gormley said. Of the teens who have been placed with host families through the organization, all who were old enough have graduated high school and about 90% of them have gone on to some form of college.

There are homeless youth in every community across Maine, she said. Teens particularly tend to worry about the stigma of homelessness so they can be more difficult to find. The organization always has a minor or two in need of a home placement.

Housing Resources Program Director Antwane Mills is working with Auburn officials on a priority list for minors who need home placements, having placed one minor with a host family last May, according to Gormley.

Anastasoff said she will refer unaccompanied minors to Mills, who then works to find a placement for them. She attends the meeting between the minor and Mills so the child feels more comfortable going through the process with someone they know. Students tend to get nervous meeting new people and the new host family, so she does what she can to make them feel comfortable.

“(Students) maybe have already not had the best of experiences living within a family environment,” she said, “… and they hear the word family and I think that’s creating a little bit of anxiety but also a lot of interest. If you know, it’s like ‘wow that makes me nervous but wow I really want that.’”

For information on how to become a host family contact Housing Resources at housingresourcesforyouth@gmail.com.

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