A crowd of about 50 people gathered at Friends of Youth’s new Youth Service Center in the Evergreen Hill neighborhood on Friday. They were there to celebrate the two-year long transformation of the former Grace Chapel into a modern building, fit to serve troubled and homeless youth on the Eastside as part of the Kirkland campus.

“It seems like just yesterday we were at the ground breaking,” said Kirkland Mayor and former Friends of Youth employee Joan McBride. “Kirkland is extremely proud to have Friends of Youth in Kirkland.”

Friends of Youth CEO Terry Pottmeyer describes the new Youth Service Center as being their new central location after 62 years of building 20 sites in 17 cities.

“We just knew this was the right location,” said Pottmeyer. “It’s close to educational opportunities for the young people who will eventually live here.”

The building is at a crossroads with a church and park on each side, and is located at 13116 N.E. 132nd St.

Come June, the Kirkland campus will open another facility on the site. The Youth Haven will combine two emergency shelters for 10 homeless, run-away and at-risk youth under the age of 18 years old. And later, four communal living homes in the residential area, on the other side of the fence, will be for young adults who need a place to “launch” from.

“Sometimes I describe Friends of Youth as though we’re parenting kids who need a little extra parenting support,” Pottmeyer said. “We’re parenting these young people who’ve turned 18 and are maybe aging out of the foster care system or maybe their families have asked them to leave because financially they can no longer support them.”

With a 46 percent increase of homeless youth within the last two years, Friends of Youth continues to turn away young adults and teens due to low capacity. Some communal living spaces have wait lists of 200, according to Pottmeyer.

“There’s a perception on the Eastside is that everybody who lives there is good looking, tall, rich and not homeless, and some of those are true of course, but some of them may not be,” said King County Councilwoman Kathy Lambert, who also serves as the chair of the Law, Justice, Health and Human Services Committee in King County. “I think with the One Night Count saying there are more [people] that are homeless in this area shows just how much this is needed.”

Pottmeyer recognized and thanked developer Rand Redlin with Common Ground, LaRoy Gant and Ross Jamieson with Lewis Architects, and Marv Scott and Gary Lukaris with Scott Construction for helping to make the dream a reality. She also mentioned the Evergreen Hill Neighborhood Association for being welcoming, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for opening up their parking lot, the City of Kirkland staff for working well with the organization and city planner Tony Leavitt for helping with the “complicated process.”

Although Friends of Youth staff are no doubt excited about their nonprofit’s expansion, Board of Directors chair Phil Crocker said grand openings such as this are “bittersweet.”

“This is the third grand opening I’ve had in the last year-and-a-half,” Crocker said. “And it’s exciting and every one of those is creating efficiencies and creating capacity, but we still wish we could drive ourselves out of business one of these days.”

Crocker said they recently doubled the beds at their Redmond emergency shelter but continue to turn away kids some nights.

“We’re gonna have housing here and it’s gonna be full one of these days and that’s going to be wonderful because those kids have nowhere else to go,” said Crocker, “but it’s going to be frustrating because that issue still exists.”

Friends of Youth is currently 30 percent of the way for their Capital Campaign, but they are always looking for supporters and partners so they can continue to open more places.

To learn more about the Capital Campaign, contact Kami Dockery at (425) 869-6490 ext.315 or email kami@friendsofyouth.org.

For more information visit FriendsofYouth.org

Photo:  President and CEO Terry Pottmeyer speaks during the Friends of Youth Youth Service Center’s open house event on March 29. CARRIE RODRIGUEZ/KIRKLAND REPORTER