Five Days to Safety: How REST Helped a Student Get Her Future Back

By: Alicia Wilson, Graduation Coach, Peel District School Board

Friend,

When I think about why this work matters, I think about a student I supported earlier this year.

You see, I’m a Graduation Coach and I work with Black students who are carrying more than most people will ever know. On paper, schools track them as “absent,” but the truth behind those absences is almost always much harder.

Parents being evicted.

Families sleeping in their cars.

Kids showing up to class after sleeping on the street outside of a hospital (they felt safer being near a hospital).

Young people trying to graduate while holding their entire world together.

Housing insecurity is everywhere in my work. You can't separate the two.

I had known about REST for a long time because I worked with youth exiting CAS care. I saw how often Black youth are overrepresented, how many were pushed into homelessness at 17, 18, 19 years old, trying to survive without family support. Even then, REST stood out to me. They didn’t turn young people away. They made room for them.

One of the first times I referred someone to REST was a young mother. She had no one. No family. Nowhere to go. I thought to myself, “this is a long shot.” But REST opened their arms to her without hesitation. That moment stayed with me. It showed me exactly who they are and that their compassion knew no bounds. 

And then, months later, I had a student who needed help fast.

She was alone in this country, living with her father. When that relationship broke down, she suddenly had no home. She stopped coming to school. She had been a top student. But her grades were falling fast. Her future, the one she had worked so hard for, was on the line.

I reached out to REST.

They met with her right away. Her case worker didn’t treat her like a problem to solve. He treated her like a person who deserved safety.

REST found her housing in five days.

Five days from being unhoused to having a key in her hand.

She enrolled in college soon after. Everything she thought she had lost suddenly felt possible again.

At her graduation, I was standing on stage, and I saw her walk in. She looked proud. Steady. Ready.

But then she broke down.

She was crying.

She was looking around seeing everyone get a hug from their parents except her.

My heart broke for her. I wanted to give her a hug but I couldn’t.

Then I saw her case worker walk down the aisle with a teddy bear in hand.

And she stopped crying. She broke out in a huge grin.

She realized she wasn’t alone. She had someone who cared. Someone who wanted to celebrate this milestone with her. 

That’s the difference REST makes.

Your donation today helps REST do exactly this:

• move quickly so a youth doesn’t fall through the cracks

• provide rent and grocery subsidies that keep youth housed

• work with landlords to open safe units during a housing crisis

• give young people stability so they can stay in school, work, and plan their futures

It’s a young woman getting her first home.

A student finishing high school.

A youth finally believing they deserve safety.

Your gift of $25, $50, $100, or more helps a young person in Peel feel what she felt that day.
Hope.

REST is the only Black-led organization in the region focused entirely on housing BIPOC homeless youth. And right now, far too many young people need exactly what she received.

Friend,, REST is one of the few organizations that I trust implicitly to help our youth. I know that if I make a call, they'll move heaven and earth to help them.

Will you help them?