McLean County school districts are on the front lines of the battle against youth homelessness, but school officials say access to education is always the top priority. It’s not the school’s charge to shelter unhoused students in the district.
Unit 5 spokesperson Dayna Brown told WGLT that’s just not possible.
“We are not a social service agency,” she explained. “We’re a school district, and we don’t have the capacity to do all that we wish we could.”
Which is where Project Oz steps in.
Project Oz has existed in Bloomington for just over half a century, and it’s the only social service organization in the county dedicated to helping youth and adolescents — ages 10 to 23 — facing a housing crisis.
Cheris Larson, director of youth services at the nonprofit, said Project Oz sees around 300 clients over 18 right now, and 100 youth under 18. Larson said client numbers nearly doubled in the past decade or so.
“It’s a mix of the crisis is certainly occurring — and it’s occurring more — but also there’s more awareness [about Project Oz],” she said, speculating as to why there’s been an increase.
It’s easy for youth and adolescents to fly under the radar, Larson added, particularly in Bloomington-Normal.
“We've always referred to the youth homelessness issue as kind of the hidden homeless,” she said. “In an affluent town in a fluent city, with major universities, major hospitals, a community college, young people kind of just fade into that population.”
‘I was scared for my life’
Take Ja’Riah Johnson. A McLean County resident since she was 5, Johnson says she’s been precariously housed, or unhoused altogether, most of her life. Her mother has serious mental health concerns that made living with her difficult, she said.
Johnson said she’s lived with foster families through The Forgotten Initiative and even in a car with her older brother at one point.
“I’ve been through a lot,” she said. “It’s been a hardship. I’m still going through stuff.”
Her life has gotten better since she found Project Oz, though. Remembering Project Oz from their visits to her middle school, Johnson said she reached out to the group a couple years ago.
She was 17 and her foster family informed her she needed to move out by November, but she didn’t have anywhere to go.
“It was so close,” she said, adding they told her at the beginning of October. “I was scared for my life.”
Project Oz assigned Johnson a case manager, who assisted her in finding an apartment. Her foster family agreed to let her stay until she was 18, which was when Johnson moved into her first place.
Now 19, Johnson said she's been with Project Oz ever since.
“They help me so much,” she said.
She's currently taking a life skills course through the nonprofit that teaches about essentials like finances and cooking.

And these are only some of the ways Project Oz can help.
“We do quite a bit,” Larson said.
The nonprofit’s other services include the Youth Empowered Schools [YES] program — that Johnson recalled from her youth — aimed at preventing substance abuse, as well as an emergency housing program.
Project Oz staff also are embedded in some schools. They teach restorative practices — a social science all about building relationships —and a pending building expansion will allow the nonprofit to offer additional services, including laundry.
Where Project Oz can't help, Larson said the agency looks to community partners.
“We’re always trying to access services for our young people that are going to be more of a wraparound approach,” she explained.
Mental health
Larson said just under 80% of Project Oz clients identify themselves as having mental health struggles. Being precariously housed can be traumatic.
That's why Larson said Oz partners with mental health agencies in Bloomington-Normal, including the Center for Youth and Family Solutions, the McLean County Center for Human Services and Chestnut Health Systems.
Johnson said all that she went through had a detrimental impact on her mental health, and before she went to Project Oz, she had to be hospitalized for mental illness.
“I couldn’t understand why everything was happening to me, especially at that age,” she said.
She found motivation when thinking about her little brother, and Johnson said teachers at her Unit 5 high school were also helpful. But she still struggles with mental health, and said she doesn’t want to go back to that place.
“I’ve never been to jail, but it was most definitely like that,” she said of her time in the mental hospital. “I was traumatized.”
'I've been just kind of finding my way'

Almaveria Hudson is another Project Oz client. She's 22 and said she started getting help from Project Oz around January of last year.
After aging out of foster care, she left Texas and came to Bloomington. However, she didn’t have any family or support in the area and said it was difficult to navigate services.
“I’ve kind of just been finding my way,” she said, adding she was in and out of Bloomington's Home Sweet Home Ministries shelter for a few years.
Hudson said a friend she’d been staying with was the one who finally pointed her to Project Oz, which was able to help her and her two kids. Now, she's in an apartment and working full time.
The child welfare organization in Bloomington called Brightpoint has a weekday daycare program, which is where Hudson's kids stay so she can work. The service is free.
“I ended up getting really, really lucky,” she said.
Another Project Oz client who asked to remain anonymous said the nonprofit has helped her and her kids, too.
“A year ago, I was homeless with both of my kids just couch surfing,” she explained.
That's not the case anymore. Her kids — like Hudson's — are enrolled with Brightpoint for daycare. She said Project Oz also helps her find diapers and other resources to take care of her children.
“I’m finally where I want to be in life because I was able to set goals for myself and achieve those goals,” she said.
Her case manager helped her enroll in counseling and school again. She'll be taking classes at Heartland Community College soon.
At the same time, she recognizes why people might be afraid to reach out to the nonprofit.
“It’s just a scary thought of like, if you’re telling somebody about your life, what if they take it in the wrong way?” she said. “But that’s not how Project Oz is… They’re there to help you.”
Hudson said she wishes there were more resources like Project Oz for people in the community. She said there also needs to be more accessible mental health services and more places that can shelter people who have been in situations like hers.
Johnson said beyond resources, there needs to be more compassion for people living unsheltered or precariously housed — both from people working in the system to assist the population and the public.
“They’re not getting a lot of support,” she explained of homeless youth. “And I think that’s where we need to start.”