Tumbleweed's Young Adults Program (Y.A.P.) provides a safe place to live for homeless or runaway youth who have no other financial support or place to live. These young people have no viable family to support them and rarely are wards of the court. Youth receive independent living training, counseling, job development and skill building. Skill building is designed to help the youth learn to live independently and includes employment and parenting skills as well as a focus on increasing education level. Youth can be pregnant or parenting and can stay up to two years.

This is the only facility in Maricopa County providing these comprehensive Independent Living Services for youth under 18 that do not require the youth to be State wards. Minors must have parental permission.

Success Story: YAP Client - Feb. 2009

"I love living at YAP. I have more opportunity here than I have had anywhere else. The bus system was hard to figure out when I first got here, but living at YAP I have learned the system out in no time. I wanted to live in a place that was safe for me and my daughter, YAP turned out to be more than that. They have staff that I can talk to and that always are here to listen. At the young age of sixteen, I am already in college and I love it. I have my very own apartment, which I have learned to keep clean and be responsible for. I have become more social, even meeting new clients that come in right away. Shane found me a GED class that I have leaned to enjoy daily. Carl does a great job at listening and doing everything he can to make bad situations better. I was given a chance to be apart of a good community and I am going to make the best of it. My daughter is now seven months and it is nice to know she grew up at YAP. There are other children at YAP so she gets to interact with other babies. I just was to say thank you for giving me a chance to express how I feel about living at YAP." - YAP CLIENT S.J.

Thank You Lopez Family... Feb. 2009

We would like to recognize Kristy Lopez and her family for giving our youth at YAP a wonderful Christmas to remember.  Kristy contacted us in November and was excited to work with us from the start. She took the time to ask for each client’s clothes size, shoe size, and number of members in each family. The Lopez family provided our youth with brand new toys, board games, clothes, shoes, hygiene products, snacks, and more.  It was awesome to witness the youths’ and their little ones’ reaction.  The Lopez family also provided a wonderful cooked meal with all sorts of desserts when the gifts were presented.  We had a couple of raffles during the dinner and the youth were all smiles from then on. The youth were so thankful that they made individual thank you cards for the Lopez family the following week. We want to express our thanks and gratitude to the Lopez family for their kind gesture and sacrifice they made for our youth. 

Volunteer Opportunities:

Anyone with a specific skill to teach is welcome to present during group time at 7:00pm seven days a week. Topics (which should translate into independent living skills or educational) could include cooking, shopping, self-defense, financial planning/budgeting, career advice, parenting skills and more.