When young people called the Santa Clara County Youth Crisis Line, Monta Vista High School senior Manan Dua, who works at the Crisis Line as a volunteer, noticed a pattern. Many weren’t asking whether help existed. They were asking where to find it and how they could actually get there.
These questions stayed with Dua. If resources were available but young people couldn’t navigate the system to reach them, he wondered, how useful were those resources? His answer was FCHome, an app that connects homeless and at-risk youth with shelters, food, healthcare, essential supplies, and free transportation.
Youth homelessness is often framed as a problem of limited resources. However, for many young people, the barrier can be more basic: knowing where to turn, understanding what help they qualify for, and figuring out how to access it.
Since its creation, FCHome has grown beyond an app into a broader community effort. The project won first place in California’s 18th Congressional District in the Congressional App Challenge and has raised more than $7,000 for community outreach efforts, including food distribution and transit passes…