In 1978, Dorothy Stoneman, now president of YouthBuild Inc., asked neighborhood teens in East Harlem, NY how they would improve their community if they had adults supporting them. The students answered, "We'd rebuild the houses. We'd take empty buildings back from the drug dealers and stop crime." Together they formed the Youth Action Program and Homes and renovated the first YouthBuild building. They replicated the program in five locations in New York City during the 1980s.
By 1990 the program had been launched in 14 U.S. cities, and YouthBuild USA was founded to orchestrate the program's national replication in the United States. In 1993, U.S. federal legislation "Hope for Youth: YouthBuild" funded the expansion of YouthBuild. Since then, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and more recently, the U.S. Department of Labor have overseen the replication of YouthBuild into more than 220 urban, rural, and tribal communities in 44 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The original program in East Harlem is still operating. YouthBuild programs have won majority bipartisan support in both houses of the U.S. Congress, allowing the number of programs and students to increase each year. Through the federal YouthBuild program, more than $600 million has been brought into hundreds of low-income communities across the U.S. This federal investment in YouthBuild has leveraged an additional $1.2 billion in local public and private support.
In 2000, YouthBuild launched its first international consultancies and partnerships in Canada, South Africa, Mexico, and Serbia. Since then, YouthBuild International has engaged with governments, NGOs, and youth development systems in 20 countries.
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