OGDEN, Utah — From the outside, Lauren Garcia seems to have a good life; married with two children. But the road to get there wasn’t easy.
“I have been homeless since the age of 13, and I wound up getting into some trouble down in Texas that led me into group homes, but they weren't anything like this. By the grace of God, I stumbled across this place,” said Garcia.
The place is Youth Futures in Ogden.
“I did stumble with drugs for a long time," she said, "but this place gave me the mind opening... it was my choice, you had the option, and you didn't choose it, and that's where it was like, okay, accountability started.”
Leo Alejandre was going through something similar.
“I got my injury, knee injury. I had surgery, and for the first time was introduced to opioids. Had no idea that was gonna give me, really, the battle of my life," shared Alejandre.
Utah legislature leaders support funding for new ways to tackle homelessness:
Lauren and Leo both spent time in jail.
“I lost the identity of that kid, who that person was," Alejandre said. "I became the convict trying to still get drugs in jail. I was that guy.”
All it took for them to pull out of it was hope.
“When I got incarcerated, and I was still choosing the wrong ways, they came and visited me there, let me know they loved me. It was just constant love from them. It just showed me that the system too can care,” Garcia explained.
Youth Futures founder Kristen Mitchell said an important statistic was discovered in the organization's data from 2025, leading into this year.
“82% of the kids that come through our programs and graduate and go on, they're not showing up in the adult homeless system," explained Mitchell.
She believes the reason for the success is early intervention programs.
“Open door policy. We want them to see that someone cares about them, no matter what," said Mitchell. "Someone's here to help them listen to them, get them therapy, teach them the life skills that they need, really to help them develop into productive adults.”
Alejandre had a longer road than Garcia and thinks that if he had been in the same program, his life could have looked completely different.
“The fact of the matter is, it would have saved me so much pain, so much pain from my mother," he said. "My biological mother, who's here with me, is the only person at the end that didn't give up on me.”
Everyone I spoke with shared how early intervention and hope are the key to tackling the reality of homelessness.
“Kids look at this like a system place, like, somewhere that is scary, somewhere where your rights are going to be taken, and somewhere where.. you're just a number, right?" said Garcia. "So, something like this, it just completely changed my outlook.”
