Young Adult Homeless Shelter To Open In Cambridge

A homeless shelter for young adults opens in Cambridge next month.

On Friday, hundreds of people who have made the Y2Y shelter a reality celebrated at the shelter's site in Harvard Square.

"We have been building this program with the idea in mind we will be a resource for all Greater Boston," said Harvard University graduate Sam Greenberg, one of the shelter's founders, ahead of the event. "We have limited resources, but we want to be available to anyone who wants it."

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke at Friday's ceremony, saying the collaborative effort is something to celebrate.

"By making a start we make a real difference, person to person. And we make a real difference in a second way, and that is leading by example," she said. "Showing that when we get ourselves organized, when we see a problem and attack that problem, we have the capacity together to make a real difference."

The shelter for 18- to 24-year-olds will include 22 beds when it is operational next month.

Each person staying there will be assigned a case manager to help them find a job or more permanent housing.

The shelter will also include gender-inclusive sleep areas.

"The estimate is that nationwide, we have 39,000 homeless youth on any given night in this country," said Warren at the event. "... We have an estimated 20 to 40 percent of those youth are LGBTQ, and that means it's a pretty tough street out there."

With reporting by WBUR's Fred Thys