Detroit Phoenix Center CFO Marshawn Pettes sets up a Playstation 5 in an area of the YouthUp Mobile Outreach Unit 40-foot customized motor coach that will bring services to the youth providing a kitchen and food pantry, shower, clothing and toiletries as well as an area to hangout and play video games at Detroit PAL on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press

A vibrant RV, stocked with snacks, a PlayStation and shower, will hit the road this summer to get essentials out to young people in need.

Detroit Free Press
This story also appeared in Detroit Free Press

The custom-built vehicle, dubbed the YouthUp mobile unit, is the Detroit Phoenix Center’s latest project to tackle housing insecurity among young people, ages 12 to 24. By partnering with community-based organizations and schools, the idea is to take basic resources — hygiene kits, food, laptops and internet — and a gaming space, straight to teens and young adults across metro Detroit, but primarily in the city. Nonprofit leaders say the project is a crucial way to help a hard-to-reach population that’s often hidden in plain sight.

“It’s an opportunity for us to meet young people just right where they are in the community,” Courtney Smith, CEO and founder of the nonprofit Detroit Phoenix Center, told the Free Press.

It’s hard to say how many youth in Detroit are facing homelessness but one measure, a single-night count, offers a glimpse.

From 2023 to 2024, children faced the largest increase in homelessness across the country and locally. The number of children experiencing homelessness last year — sheltered and unsheltered — reached the highest number in a decade, according to a Free Press analysis of Homeless Action Network of Detroit (HAND) data.

A total of 464 children under 18 were unhoused, or 27% of the people facing homelessness in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park counted on one-night in January 2024. The tally also identified 115 young adults, ages 18 to 24. The vast majority were in emergency shelter or housing programs. This group makes up a fraction of the overall unhoused population but housing experts caution that youth homelessness is notoriously difficult to track, and definitions vary, so numbers are likely an undercount.

The Detroit Phoenix Center’s YouthUp Mobile Outreach Unit 40-foot customized motor coach that will bring services to the youth providing a kitchen and food pantry, shower, clothing and toiletries as well as an area to hangout and play video games is seen at Detroit PAL on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press

“What we don’t see, and what we don’t know — and we know this number is growing — is the number of unsheltered people, or people that are unhoused, that are within plain sight. The people that are couch surfing, the people that are working, so they have a job and they have wages, but perhaps the wages are not enough to secure long-term and stable housing,” said Meagan Dunn, CEO of Covenant House Michigan, which provides shelter and resources to young adults, ages 18 to 24.

What is known, however, is that there’s a great need for services.

Covenant House Michigan’s street outreach team picked up nearly 700 people last year, including families and older people, taking them to the nonprofit and shelters, Dunn said. The Ruth Ellis Clairmount Center, providing 43 units of supportive housing in Detroit, remains at capacity.

“Young people will often couch surf. They will stay in abandoned homes. They will engage in survival sex work. There are so many other ways that young people are surviving so that they don’t have to connect with these housing systems that can often feel unwelcoming,” said Mark Erwin, executive director of the Ruth Ellis Center, which provides housing and services to LGBTQ+ youth.

Young people may lack social supports as they age out of foster care, said Terra Linzner, homelessness solutions director for the city of Detroit’s housing and revitalization department. They also need mental health services and affordable housing options, Dunn said.

That’s why the Detroit Phoenix Center’s newest project, which was unveiled on Wednesday at Detroit PAL, is so important, agency leaders and housing experts said. Taking resources straight to those who need it builds trust and rapport.

“A lot of the young people who need these services don’t have a car, don’t have access to a car, and we know that buses are not always super reliable. They can take a really long time. So, going literally to where they are at, I think, is really wonderful,” said Meredith Baughman, youth homelessness coordinator for HAND.

Smith, with the Detroit Phoenix Center, said the project is unique from other types of outreach because it’s holistic — connecting young people to education, food, housing, utility and mental health supports. The way she sees it, these measures prevent housing instability in the first place. The 40-foot vehicle is equipped with a bathroom, small kitchen, pantry, space for one-on-one sessions and a gaming area.

“Our mobile youth center is not just for young people experiencing housing insecurity. We’re using it as a bridge. We’re using it as an opportunity to address young people that are experiencing housing insecurity — that self identify — but then those who may not even identify as experiencing housing insecurity because that’s why this undercount exists, because of the stigma … we’re trying to combat that, and our hope is that through this outreach, we’re able to get a better scope and a better lens on how many young people are actually in need,” Smith said.

How to get help

Free Press staff writer Kristi Tanner contributed to this report.

Nushrat Rahman covers issues and obstacles that influence economic mobility, primarily in Detroit, for the Detroit Free Press and BridgeDetroit, as a corps member with Report for America, a national service...