Once homeless teen graduating Saturday turns around her life in Walkabout transitional program in Freeport

Like many teens on the verge of graduation, Rihanna Myrie is looking to the future.

But, unlike her classmates at Hempstead High School, the 19-year-old is also saying goodbye to the uncertainty of where she will lay her head at night.

For Myrie, graduation Saturday is more than getting a diploma and heading off to the University at Buffalo to study medicinal chemistry in hopes of becoming a pediatrician.

It's the bookend to a chapter of her life marked by abuse, loss and homelessness but ultimately culminating with her finding refuge in a transitional youth residence in Freeport.

"I had zero self-confidence. They helped me to build up that confidence and to value myself more," Myrie said of the staff of Walkabout for Young Men and Women in Freeport. 

Inside a large brick house situated on a corner lot, Myrie lives with about six others, all of whom are between the ages of 16 and 20. All of them have run away from home or been unhoused and are taking part in the program, a nonprofit that is part of the Family & Children's Association which aims to equip them with independent living skills like budgeting, counseling, and family intervention to help prevent homelessness in the future.

"Most of the people who graduate from this program definitely go to a more stable housing situation," said Sharon Solomon, the runaway homeless youth program director for the Family & Children's Association. "So that is our number one goal ... to make sure that they have stability."

In the house, Myrie has a light blue room that is all hers. Stuffed toys, are on each of the two twin beds in the room.

The space is a far cry from the uncertainty that marked much of her younger years. Born in Jamaica, Myrie came to the United States at the age of 15. Her father died more than 10 years ago, and her mother remains in Jamaica.

In Brooklyn, she lived with her aunt and grandmother, a nurse who doted on her and first introduced her to the idea of being a physician by taking her to the hospital where she worked.

But a year after Myrie arrived in the country, her grandmother died of cancer at the age of 67, leaving the teen in disbelief. "And until this day, I still haven’t cried yet, because I don’t believe it," she said.

Myrie was left to live with a relative in what she described as an abusive relationship. School became her "happy place." She would leave the house around 6:30 a.m. and return home around 4 p.m., allowing her to partially escape her home situation.

She would do her homework, shower, eat and go to bed. But eventually, the relative told her to leave. And Myrie was shuffled off to Georgia. There, Myrie went to live with another relative, who told the teen she had to leave in two weeks. 

So on her 17th birthday, Myrie found herself back in New York, this time living with yet another family member. But, yet again, she was told she could only stay there for four months.

Finally, after staying with other family members, while a junior at Hempstead High School, she was kicked out of the home and left homeless, questions about her future racing through her young mind.

Regina Edgeworth, a social worker and teen center coordinator at Hempstead High School, met Myrie around that time at a Thanksgiving dinner for the community in 2023.

"The look on her face, she looked sad," said Edgeworth, adding later: "You could tell she was going through something."

After trying to convince the family to take Myrie back in, Edgeworth made a call to Nassau Haven — an emergency shelter with an available bed. A shelter worker, she said, picked up Myrie and brought her to the facility where she stayed through the early part of 2024. Relatives dropped off her clothes at the school.

"The trials that she's gone through, and tribulation that she has gone through, it doesn't prevent her from continuing to do what she has to do," Edgeworth said.

Solomon, who is also program director for Nassau Haven, had met Myrie when she was living in the shelter with little support outside of the school staff.

"When I first met her, the only people she [mostly] spoke to were actually teachers," she recalled. "She spent her lunchtime in the teachers’ offices, with the ... school social worker."

Solomon thought Myrie would be a good fit for the Walkabout for Young Men and Women program, which provides housing but also gives them help with career support, and other services.

All of the students are expected to work, including Myrie, who babysits. A significant portion of their paychecks is stashed away and returned once they graduate from the program.

One participant saved as much as $32,000. The funds have been used to buy a car, housing and other key purchases in the pathway toward independent living. Myrie has saved about $3,000, but has also received $10,000 in scholarships. 

The Walkabout for Young Men and Women program costs nearly $800,000 a year to run, nonprofit officials say. Funding for the program comes from donations, the Nassau County Office of Youth Services and other places.

In the house, participants develop key life skills like cooking for one another in the kitchen. They can also lounge in a living room space with a large TV, a couch and bookcases filled with books and board games and art.

On a recent visit to the home, Myrie pulled out a copy of her favorite book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," from her closet.

The seminal autobiography from Maya Angelou details how the writer was shuffled from relative to relative in her youth, deals with a period of silence after being raped and recognizes her resilience.

"It helped me to not let my past define me," she said of the work. "To just find the real me and just continue and be that person."

Still, she said in an earlier interview that she feels like a "broken person."

Solomon, who was sitting beside her, interjected, saying, "You’re not broken."

"Anything that’s broken, you know, can be repaired and fixed, OK, because you didn’t say destroyed, you said broken," she said. 

The repair work is underway. Today, she is still reserved but far more talkative. She has made friends inside and outside of the house. She goes out on the weekends.

She recently participated in a program at a hospital in Mineola, where she gathered babies in her arms and read to them to provide them with comfort.

"I fell in love," said Myrie, who said the experience cemented her desire to become a pediatrician.

When asked what she believes to be ahead of her, she said, "All the good things in life, because I try to work hard, so I am going to see the payback."

By Tiffany Cusaac-Smith

tiffany.cusaac-smith@newsday.com@T_Cusaac

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith is a general assignment reporter for Newsday. She previously worked at USA TODAY and is an alum of Howard University.