CDS opens new Gainesville youth shelter
CDS Family & Behavioral Health Services cut the ribbon on its new Interface Youth Shelter in Gainesville on Thursday.
The short-term shelter, located a quarter of a mile east of Gainesville Regional Airport on SR 222/NE 39th Ave., will serve youth ages 10-17 years old, who are truant, homeless, runaways or trafficked.
The youths can stay for up to 30 days, reviewed on a day-to-day basis for behavior while they receive counseling and are provided the opportunity to hear from organizations like Planned Parenthood and Peaceful Paths Domestic Violence Agency about life choices.
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The shelter is intended to teach children social and cognitive-behavioral skills, how to manage their emotions and handle situations at home and at school.
"There's all sorts of reasons [a child would come to the shelter], but all of these reasons are challenging," Tommy Lane, president of the CDS board of directors, said in an interview. "To get to be able to speak into a young person at a time of vulnerability... gives them the opportunity to make decisions that later on... You either turn into a user of resources or a contributor to society, and that's where we hope to be able to speak into these young kids."
Lane said CDS's old Gainesville youth shelter, built in 1955, was just old and worn out, and it was time for a change. Lane said he, former CEO Jim Pearce and the vice president at the time, Daniel Crafts, started talking eight years ago about a new building on a new campus that could bring all of CDS's functions together.
Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, became what Lane calls the champion of the building, as he brought a funding request for the new shelter through the state Legislature multiple times—Lane said the appropriation was vetoed twice.
Eventually, the state approved not just the appropriations to support construction of the $3 million building, but also a 50-year lease on a 12-acre campus which will cost CDS $1 per year.
The new facility is state-of-the-art and spacious, according to Lane and Chief Executive Officer Philip Kabler. It has the same capacity as the old youth shelter, with 20 beds—10 for boys, 10 for girls. But instead of putting all the boys in one room and all the girls in another, the new shelter has separate bedrooms with 1-3 beds each, and dayrooms for each gender.
The shelter is outfitted through donations, from the oven range donated by First Federal Bank, to the beanbag chairs from CordaRoy's Originals , to outdoor patio furniture from Rotary Club of Gainesville Sunrise and quilts from North Florida Sewing Center.
CDS will turn 55 years old next year, and its leaders say the new youth shelter is only the first building to be placed on the state-leased campus, as they have plans to bring together more of CDS's operations onto the plot, accompanied by synergistic organizations that need a place to plant their feet.
"This was a lot of people involved beyond the building," Kabler said in an interview. "We call people team members here, so it's our team. That's what I'm pleased to see, the culmination of a large team effort, and frankly, in the end, how it's going to, in the long term, benefit the children in the communities."
CDS also has youth shelters in Palatka and Lake City.
