Founded in 1914, YouthLink seeks to highlight and develop the strengths and dreams of youth to improve the health and well-being of all who live in Scarborough. YouthLink has reinvented itself over 105 years. It began providing programs in Scarborough in 1983 through a field office. With Scarborough’s rapid growth and rapid increase in poverty, YouthLink relocated to Scarborough to respond to the extreme lack of services for youth in this community. The poverty rate in Scarborough is 27%, with about 22,000 Scarborough youth living in poverty.

YouthLink runs a hub of community programs through seven facilities in Scarborough: it runs the Pathways to Education program for 380 students, a What’s Up walk-in mental health counselling service for youth, supportive co-op housing, a homeless youth shelter, and other programs for youth and families. For the female’s residential home, where girls up to age 18 receive supportive housing and counselling, Skylark handles all applications. This program seeks to help girls build the foundation for independent living. YouthLink is an anchor agency for United Way Toronto.

During 2017, 8,711 youths got services through YouthLink, a 31% increase over 2016. Each youth had, on average, 11.6 contacts with YouthLink compared with 15.4 average contacts in 2016. YouthLink is accredited with Canadian Centre for Accreditation, as are many social service providers, and also accredited with Children’s Mental Health Ontario.

Recent News: In March 2019, YouthLink opened its new co-ed youth transitional home and emergency shelter. It has 10 emergency shelter beds and 41 transition long-term beds. This is Scarborough’s first and only youth homeless shelter. It is unique within Toronto as it has a dog kennel. For many homeless youths, dogs are security, body heat, and a great source of companionship. Many young people living on the streets would not use shelters as it means leaving their dog alone. Scarborough’s new shelter allows youth to come in, get supports and services with their dog. For youth staying in transition rooms, dogs can sleep in the same room. In 2021 YouthLink reports its youth shelter is full.

The Scarborough shelter is modeled on breaking the cycle of homelessness with individual rooms rather than dormitories and wrap-around services rather than pushing homeless people out first thing in the morning. Youthlink’s services for homeless youth include counselling, life skills, schooling, trade skills training, and drug addiction rehab. YouthLink estimates there are more than 1,000 homeless youths in Scarborough. For more, CBC’s New homeless shelter for youth in Scarborough.

In F2020, YouthLink received $3.1m in donations and $4.3m in government funding.  YouthLink’s audited financial statements do not disclose activity-based costing, namely how much is spent on programs, management/admin, and fundraising. Ci has used the information provided in YouthLink's regulatory filing. This information is not independently verified.

YouthLink reports administrative costs of 18% of total revenues and fundraising costs of 9%. In total, YouthLink spends 26% on overhead. For every dollar donated, 74 cents go to the cause which is within Ci’s reasonable range. 

YouthLink has $1.6 million in cash as gross funding reserves. Of this $19k is donor endowed.  In F2020 YouthLink bought $1.0m of land, financed with a mortgage. As such, YouthLink's net funding reserves are $0.5m that cover its program costs for one month. 

YouthLink has spent $7.1m in capital expenditures over the last three years to open up its new transitional and homeless shelter for youth and other building improvements.