HQ is a drop-in center for youth who don’t have a safe place to call home, are sleeping outside, or just need a safe place to connect with caring adults.
Photos by Adam Bird of Bird + Bird Studio.
HQ is a drop-in center for youth who don’t have a safe place to call home, are sleeping outside, or just need a safe place to connect with caring adults. This center is a free resource for youth ages 14 to 24 in housing crisis.
HQ partners with The Wisdom Center Counseling Services, Health Net of West Michigan, and Grand Valley Family Health Center to constantly improve their services and meet the health and wellness needs of local youth in crisis.
The drop-in center’s most recent improvement to its services was launching its Comprehensive Health Initiative in the fall of 2019. This initiative provides basic healthcare navigation and access, healing-centered therapy, and holistic wellness activities.
Part of HQ’s growth lies in the specificity of the population served. “We are quite firm on our age range. We hold this range to protect the youth we work with,” says Alyssa Anten, drop-in coordinator at HQ. Although the nonprofit provides an age range, no one is turned away, and the staff at HQ will help anyone in crisis get the resources they need. “We would never turn anyone away without helping them find the resources that would support them. We would point them in the right direction for their needs,” says Anten.