For youth, by youth: a third student-run homeless shelter

Abstract

This past winter, the third student-run homeless shelter in the United States came into being. Two recent Harvard graduates, Sam Greenberg and Sarah Rosenkrantz, who had volunteered at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter as college students, saw a need within the Boston and Cambridge communities for a homeless shelter serving young adults. Drawing upon the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter’s student-run model, Sam and Sarah worked with Harvard College undergraduates to open Youth-to-Youth (Y2Y) Harvard Square, a homeless shelter exclusively for young adults ages 18–24. This article features an interview with Sam and Sarah about their work to establish Y2Y Harvard Square and the experiences of the college students leading and staffing the shelter.