A federal grant will allow the Youthbuild Program to expand

LEWISTON – After living in group homes and running away from one, Christy Oliver dropped out of school last year.

What followed for the 17-year-old was homelessness.

“I was living on the streets,” she said, staying at times on a friend’s couch. She knew it wasn’t good.

“I decided I needed to get my life together because I’m the only one who’s going to support myself,” she said.

As she spoke she wore a hard hat. She stood inside a run-down, three-bedroom house on Spring Street, behind Central Maine Medical Center.

Oliver and other high school dropouts are renovating the house, which will be sold or leased to a low-income family. Students in the Youthbuild program will spend months ripping out the bathroom and kitchen, building new cabinets, putting up Sheetrock, painting, installing plumbing and laying down new floors.

Earlier this week officials announced that Youthbuild – a Coastal Enterprises program for at-risk young adults – got a boost to continue building homes and educating young people.

The program received a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The grant will allow the program to continue and expand during the next 30 months, program director Sandy Goss said.

Students, high-school dropouts between the ages of 16 and 24, spend half the week with teachers working on their GEDs. The other half of the work week they’re at job sites, learning skills.

HUD Field Office Director Bill Burney made the grant announcement Tuesday at the Spring Street house. “I’m thrilled with what you’re going to do with this house,” Burney said. The government provides the money, but the program is “really about you and what you’re going to do with the rest of your lives,” he told the workers.

After the speech, Cheryle Kelley, 24, perched above the second-floor hall, laying down insulation in the attic. She wore a hard hat, a construction apron and a smile as she talked about her future.

Matthew Burgess, 20, plans to go to Central Maine Community College. “I’m going to be a computer technician.”

He said he dropped out of Lewiston High School because he was into drugs and alcohol. When he entered Youthbuild, they told him: “‘You’ve got a good life ahead of you, but you’ve got things to do.'”

These days he’s the father of a 4-month-old girl. He has stopped the substance abuse, and is cracking the books and swinging a hammer.

Cherie Spruill, 25, has been in Youthbuild for four months. She grew up in New York and came to Lewiston to make a fresh start. “I was doing things I shouldn’t have been doing,” she said while cutting insulation.

When Spruill arrived in Lewiston she lived on the streets until a friend told her about Youthbuild. Since enrolling, she’s insulated buildings, painted houses and installed windows. “I have done a lot I didn’t expect to do.”

Oliver, who dropped out of Livermore Falls High School last year and found herself homeless, is now filling out college applications.

“I’d like to be a receptionist at a hospital somewhere,” she said.

Before these young adults go on to fulfill their dreams, work on the Spring Street house will continue. Construction supervisor Tom Dorsey said the house will be “totally redone” by August.

The value of the house is now $60,000 to $70,000. When renovated it will be worth about $125,000.