Red Lake Nation Opening Up New Youth Shelter

Youth and adolescents are incredibly important to any community, and making sure those youth have resources to ensure their safety and well-being is critical. In Red Lake, a group gathered on Friday to learn about a new shelter that will provide those resources.

“We are opening up a youth shelter come this winter,” said Katie Northbird, Red Lake Nation Youth Shelter chief executive director. “We wanted to share that we were opening soon, where we were located, and the services that we are going to have.”

A big component as to why the Red Lake Nation Youth Shelter was made was to provide help for Red Lake’s younger population on a 24/7 basis.

“I feel like with the programs that already exist are programs that are aimed towards adults and families,” explained Northbird. “There’s not enough services that serve our youth, and so I think this was really an exciting thing for everybody to learn about because it brings a different kind of service to our youth.”

Currently, the youth shelter is only temporary, but there are already plans to create a permanent shelter in the future.

“Right now we are in the works of creating a blueprint for our permanent structure and finding a land assignment that will really fit the needs that we are trying to grasp in our work,” said Northbird.

As it stands, the temporary structure has six rooms, which means the shelter can currently house 12 youths at any given moment. Should the permanent structure find the proper space and resources, it could serve as a valuable resource to adolescents in need as well as those around them.

“Not only are we going to be supporting youth, but their families,” explained Northbird, “And how they can help navigate through these systems and these traumas together, and send them with the tools to also do that work at home.”