HQ is located in between downtown Grand Rapids and Heritage Hill. At first glance, the unassuming brick building does little to distinguish itself from the red-brick road and the surrounding architecture, but a step inside reveals a space that is simultaneously homey and peculiar, hospitable and exceptional.
HQ is a drop-in center for youth aged 14-24 who are experiencing housing crisis or homelessness. Implemented intentionally with youth in mind, the drop-in schedule is designed to provide youth with space, time, and resources to be utilized in whatever way they are prepared to on a given day.
Luke Petsch, the Development Director at HQ, explained the organization’s unique schedule as a way to remove the barriers youth often encounter at homeless shelters. Adult shelters are potentially threatening to youth, especially considering that many struggling with housing have experienced the adults in their lives to be unsupportive, abusive, and untrustworthy.
HQ works to fill a need in Grand Rapids that is both niche and necessary, as well as to provide resources and relationships that may end a lifelong cycle of poverty and homelessness before it begins. Petsch emphasizes that HQ’s work extends beyond providing a meal, or a hot shower: “The goal is to achieve and realize your dreams, and the hopes that you have for yourself, and to not think of these challenging situations as limits from what you could do.”
The vision of HQ, and those who work to actualize that vision, recognize the principle that the very architecture of their space reflects: while the label “homeless” may homogenize a portion of the Grand Rapids community, no person is defined by their current situation. A recognition of each person’s radical individuality is central to building relationships, and many barriers to supporting youth are dissolved by these relationships.
To quote Luke Petsch, “The more we give people their humanity and the less we stick them with a label that’s arbitrary, the more committed we can be to being a community that celebrates that humanity.” By framing their work in terms of people rather than a problem, HQ celebrates the whole and holy humanity of those who walk through its doors.
by Molly Vander Werp, intern at Access of West Michigan
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