Visual and performing arts are the driving forces bringing awareness to the plight of San Diego County’s homeless teens

By Lee Schoenbart

C-Star Director Chris Estrella rehearses for Michael Jackson tribute "Man In The Mirror."

He envisions urban landscapes dotted, discreetly, of course, with homes for homeless teens and young adults. The template for this lofty goal will be his House of Hope program.
Meet Jeffrey Sitcov, an award-winning photographer who got his start decades ago with concert impresario Bill Silva. Sitcov’s original vocation was in physical therapy until he suffered a career-ending injury while treating a patient. Since then, Sitcov parlayed his photographic talents with the desire to help others and formed the company Photocharity to raise funds to aid one of society’s most vulnerable groups – homeless teenagers.
Sitcov’s music industry contacts that date back to the days of Bill Silva Presents has afforded Photocharity to raise more than $600,000 through memorabilia collected from Billy Joel, Elton John, BB King and others with generous donations of autographed guitars, keyboards, drumheads and pictures. Through Photocharity, Sitcov chose San Diego Youth Services’ Storefront Emergency Shelter for Youth as a major recipient of funds raised.
Storefront is the only shelter in the region that takes in homeless and runaway youth, ages 12 through 17, who have suffered years of abuse at the hands of their parents or guardians and have chosen life on the street as an alternative to life at home.
“Photocharity has raised $1.5 million to support Storefront. Now, we have already raised $100,000 toward the million for the House of Hope,” Sitcov said. “Our first million dollars will be to fund the three-year program.”
An estimated 2,000 children in this age group live on the streets of San Diego and across the county. That figure swells to 4,000 when foster care no longer pays families to retain these youths after they turn 18. Sitcov said the plan for House of Hope must include funding to keep the project afloat for three continuous years to receive approval.
“Storefront is the only emergency homeless shelter for kids 12 to 17, and the reason I bring this up is because they have partnered with this project for the 18-24 year olds,” Sitcov said. “There isn’t a homeless shelter in San Diego for kids 18 to 24. We’re talking about the ‘throw-away’ kids that are at such a low advantage of having people help them. They couldn’t function if you simply gave them a room; they wouldn’t know how to live properly.
“The problem is,” he said, “that once they turn 18, the foster programs dump these kids out and there’s no one helping 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds who are emotionally 13 and 14 years old and don’t have enough skills to live on their own.”
About his plan, Sitcov said, “The House of Hope, which will be the first of, hopefully, several houses we’re going to have for this age group, will be an empowerment center for these kids. We’re going to teach them how to be successful, how to live and how to be self-sufficient. We’re going to get them into trade schools, into mentorships where they’ll be able to learn skills so that they can make a living.”
Sitcov’s “house plans” began in earnest more than nine years ago in North County, first at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach and then at Yogi’s in Encinitas. Sitcov credited the Belly Up for his first opportunity to speak about teen homelessness and that he was afforded another opportunity the next evening when he addressed a Monday Night Football crowd at Yogi’s.
“Between the Belly-Up, Yogi’s and Humphrey’s we were able to raise $1.5 million from our community and share the plight of these kids that no one had any idea about at the time when I started nine years ago,” Sitcov recalled. “I would say 95 percent of our community had no idea there were homeless kids in San Diego.
“Now when I speak, and every year I speak in front of thousands of people, I would say 50 percent know that there are homeless kids in our community. That’s a huge change from nine years ago,” he said.
Christopher Estrella, founder and director of C-Star Productionz, included Sitcov’s presentation for a second year during the recent annual ALL 4 U dance showcase.
“We put on a showcase to help Sitcov and his organization with publicity, marketing and get the word out that we need help to support homeless teens in San Diego,” said Estrella, a dancer, choreographer and teacher of hip hop for more than 10 years. “I like the organization because Jeff does a great job.
“I volunteered a lot at San Pasqual Academy because I like to give back to the community,” Estrella said.
Estrella said that by providing Sitcov with a platform to educate the audience about the dilemma of homeless teenagers, “it lets everybody know there is a crisis, that they need help.”
“I showed him the shelter and he was so touched,” Sitcov said of Estrella. “He was the one who helped us and this is now the second year. He allowed me to speak, allowed us to have a DVD that ran in front of 700 people and then he made a donation on top of that.”
Sitcov hailed the Feb. 20 dance showcase at UCSD’s Mandeville Auditorium a success.
“This is the second year in a row that I have spoken in front of their wonderful production and there’s 700 to 800 people each time,” Sitcov said. “What they’ve done for us is allow me to speak and hopefully, through that, we’ll pick up some donors. When I speak, I always touch one person that will result with an action to save homeless kids. And every time I speak, thank God, that’s what happened over the last nine years.”
Most recently, Sitcov held a House of Hope meeting at a private local residence for 20 people. He called it a grassroots education and fund-raising opportunity where socially conscious guests that are financially secure meet in person with a couple of the homeless children accompanying Sitcov. The potential donors and benefactors, who Sitcov referred to as the program’s “angels,” get to ask questions during the presentation.
“Once we get word out and educate our communities, they want to help,” said Sitcov.
“If they’re touched by this, the best thing they could do is host a House of Hope meeting so we can raise this money and have the shelter,” he said. “We’re going to use the shelter as a template, and once we have the first one, we’ll start using it as a template to show other communities to do what we’ve done.”
For House of Hope meeting and donation information, call (619) 838-1952 or email info@photocharity.com.
To learn more, visit www.photocharity.com, www.sdyouthservices.org and www.cstarproductionz.com.