Friends of Youth (FOY) celebrated not just the opening of the Kirkland Youth Center Sept. 3 during an official tour, but the successful and early cessation of its “Housing Our Future” Capital Campaign. Started in 2012, the campaign raised $6.7 million to pay for the construction of six new buildings in response to rapidly growing demand for more housing. The campaign was the largest one ever in the organization’s 63-year-old history, according to Youth President and CEO Terry Pottmeyer.

FOY offers therapeutic services for youth, young adults and their families and has 25 program sites and services in 18 cities.

Pottmeyer said the economic downturn in 2008-09 caused a spike in the number of homeless youth by 46 percent in two years, which strained their existing facilities. At one point, they had 200 people on a waiting list for one of their housing facilities.

“We needed to respond in the community,” she said. “We had an obligation to do this because we are the leaders. When you’re the leader you have an obligation to lead.”

Although the campaign, started in July 2012, aimed for lofty goals in the midst of continued economic uncertainty, Pottmeyer said failure to reach them was never an option.

“We’ve always believed we would get it done because it had to happen,” she said. “We knew these things had to be built. We never had a moment where ‘Oh, we’re not going to do it.’ We just kept persevering.”

They also saw tremendous support from the community, which enabled them to meet their financial goals years earlier than anticipated.

“Conventional wisdom said three-to-four years,” she said. “And we did it in two. But I think each campaign is unique as a fingerprint, so we had set our sights on three years and we’re really pleased to finish it in two and finish all the construction with the capital campaign. We started early because we had to.”

In addition to their headquarters, FOY also built facility in Totem Lake, as well as Redmond.

The facilities are designed to help homeless youth stay off the streets. While family conflicts are the number one reason, high unemployment makes it difficult for them to find work, particularly 18-year-olds whose families are unable to support them.

“Kids were hit disproportionately in the economy,” she said. “Families were in conflict, kids were being asked to leave. Kids didn’t have enough income to support. There were a lot of reasons the economic downtown really exacerbated the situation.”

Heroin use has also required FOY to provide counseling to help teens and young adults overcome drug addiction.

Despite the increase in need, Pottmeyer says she sees a brighter future. Partnerships include youth services at both King County and Snohomish County, as well as Auburn, which allows them to collaborate.

“We are making sure we are providing a regional support network, so a youth who gets help from one agency can get help in another,” she said. “That’s a source of optimistic and hope. It’s really a solvable problem.”

For more information, visit www.friendsofyouth.org.