Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County

Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County

The YSB Center for Youth Success

Youth homelessness remains a persistent challenge in St. Joseph County.  Whether abandoned by parents, fleeing domestic violence, or kicked out of their homes, more than 1,000 teenagers and young adults ages 12-24 find themselves homeless, alone, and in crisis, every year.  Sleeping in parks, cars, abandoned buildings- wherever they can, they live in poverty at constant high risk of physical and sexual assault, and of the illnesses, emotional disorders and other dangers inherent to living on the streets.

Founded in 1972, the Youth Service Bureau (YSB) of St. Joseph County has served tens of thousands of homeless and at-risk youth, providing them with immediate safe shelter and stable housing, along with the necessary support services to promote their personal safety, economic independence, and self-sufficiency.  After many years of successfully running their program from a network of three aging and obsolete residential structures, the YSB has launched a capital campaign to finance the construction of a new, 20,000 sq. ft. facility on 15 acres of donated land in South Bend.  This new facility, to be called “The YSB Center for Youth Success,” will consolidate the operations of the three original locations to offer a broad range of housing and other programs designed to better and more efficiently serve the needs of our area youth in crisis.