Broadway Youth Center Officially Chooses New Location in Lake View

After leaving its longtime home and offering its services through multiple locations for months, the Broadway Youth Center will soon call home to a new location: the Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ.

The church at 615 W. Wellington Ave. in East Lake View is just a few blocks from its former home at 3179 N. Broadway above The Laugh Factory. The organization backed by the Howard Brown Health Center serves roughly 4,000 LGBT and homeless youth annually.

Services were slated to start at the facility Monday at noon, but according to HBHC Senior Director of Development Barbara Tieder, exact hours of operation have yet to be decided.

 “We are in the process of doing that now, so we’re not quite fully open there yet,” Tieder said. “But they’ll be providing drop in services, the same thing we’ve been doing (at other locations).”

Neighbors have yet to speak about the move from BYC’s temporary location at the Broadway United Methodist Church  but when the organization first moved there in December, residents said they were worried.

Maureen Martino, the executive director with the Lakeview East Chamber, said in the past some BYC patrons would harass neighbors and cause trouble at area businesses.

“The statistics are there,” Martino said in February. “There are almost 5,000 kids that go through this organization, and maybe 10 or 20 are causing trouble. So you have this wonderful organization that has a small percent that are bad…”

Representatives with the church said it was something they were working hard to control. At the time, the church was meant to be a temporary location until BYC found a permanent home. Tieder said they plan to run the services from the Wellington Avenue church for some time, but it’s not exactly their new permanent space.

“We’re still looking for a permanent home,” she said. “This will be the location for a while, but for me to say it’s the permanent home would be misquoting. But we want to be there for a while.”
 
Regardless of the permanency of the organization, HBHC’s interim president and CEO Karma Israelson said they’re pleased with the move to a facility offering a dedicated space for the BYC.

“The Broadway United Methodist Church (BUMC) has been an amazing partner and we thank them for assisting us in our efforts to meet the needs of the youth who access and depend on BYC’s critical services,” Israelsen. “The Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ has a long history of working with community organizations to provide services and programs to youth and we are elated to join forces to continue to work for this underserved population.”