24-hour Youth Shelter / Ashby House

The New Morning Board of Directors has approved a project to expand the Ashby House, our Children’s Shelter. The expansion project will create approximately a 400 square feet multi-purpose room. This will be accomplished by extending the roof line over the existing raised deck and enclosing the resultant space. The new room will be configured with conference furniture and study stations. The existing deck will be extended and the area below the deck will be enclosed. The cost of the project is estimated at $300,000.

New Morning Youth and Family Services (NMYFS) Emergency Youth Shelter, The Ashby House, is a State of California licensed residential care facility authorized to provide food, clothing, shelter, and treatment services to runaway and homeless children and youth as well as children and youth who are at risk of or currently detained by the court.  All of our kids at the Ashby House receive mental health and case management services. With a capacity to house 12 children or youth, ranging in age from 6-18, the Ashby House is always a very busy center of activity. From therapy sessions to family reunification meetings, to Child and Family Team meetings, to social worker or probation officer meetings, etc., the Ashby House is always short on space and long on need. Here are some points to ponder:

• It’s been 11 years since the Ashby House was built
• The Ashby House is operating 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. We never close
• NMYFS has not conducted any major maintenance to the building since it was built
• Meetings between family members and children are often conducted outside or in very small offices in an effort to facilitate privacy
• Covid-19 has forced the Ashby House to convert the living room into a one room learning center where our kids do their best to virtually learn from each of their schools simultaneously
• The infrastructure of the building was not built 11 years ago with the thought that we would need WIFI/I.T. to drive 14 computers at the same time
• The Ashby House is out of storage space
• Our amazing staff at the Ashby House have acclimated to becoming tutors, trainers, hygiene specialists, sanitizers, CDC information monitors, and gate keepers. These additional duties are combined with their roles as counselors, childcare workers, transporters, social workers, mentors, cooks, janitors, landscapers, and support persons. And no one complains!

The Marshall Foundation for Community Health has joined with New Morning Youth & Family Services by initiating the first donation from the local community to expand New Morning’s runaway and homeless children’s shelter, the Ashby House. This donation of $4,500 was used to secure architectural services for the expansion project. Additionally, the Marshall Foundation Board of Directors approved a loan of $150,000 to help with the initial construction expenses while New Morning fundraises the $300,000 needed to complete the project.

HomeAid Sacramento, the charitable arm of the North State Building Industry Association, has come alongside New Morning and committed it’s members to help build the expansion at an estimated savings of 40% of the total costs. HomeAid’s support has proven critical to strengthening New Morning’s vision of helping children and youth overcome trauma and tragedy.

For over 50 years NMYFS has served El Dorado County as a behavioral health organization. In this capacity NMYFS provides both outpatient mental health services (the outpatient clinic) and crisis residential services (the Ashby House). We always have over 100 kids receiving services from NMYFS at any given time.