If you or someone you love is in crisis, call or text 988 for immediate support.

Help open the door for the next teen who says “I need to go somewhere.”

Ant's Place is a free, walk-in, non-clinical place for struggling teens, especially autistic and neurodivergent teens.
The first of its kind in the US. The first door opens February 1, 2027.

Concept rendering: teens and hosts in the Ant’s Place community room and teaching kitchen

When a teen says the thoughts out loud, there is nowhere to go.

A teen tells a friend, or a parent, that they are having thoughts of ending their life. Nobody in that room knows what to do. Today the options are: call 988, go to the emergency room, wait for a therapist, or do nothing.

The gap is the first moment of pain, before it becomes suffering.

If they can't name a plan, the system puts the responsibility back on the family.

If they do articulate a plan, they are held somewhere built to keep them from dying,
not to help them live.

Hotlines and meetings exist. A physical place to walk in does not.

Walk in. Be met. Find hope.

No diagnosis. No insurance. No crisis required to deserve it.
No one has to disappear to belong.

Welcome: Low light, a couch, a snack, a charger ... a room whose first job is to bring a nervous system down out of fight-or-flight.

Connection: A trained person asks “where are you at?” and connects inward to groups and peers, outward to therapists and programs.

Healing & growth: Breath work, rest, bodywork, things to make and learn. Offered, never forced. The growth is what keeps them coming back.

Concept rendering: teens in the music, movement and gaming studio

This isn't a theory. It's run for ten years.

More than 230,000 visits to The Life Rooms sites over ten years.

The Life Rooms reports a 53.5% reduction in crisis-service attendance after people used its services. Its report describes a cohort of 7,500 members.

91% of clinicians surveyed said their work would be negatively affected if they could no longer refer people to The Life Rooms.

England’s £343 million expansion includes 100 walk-in community mental health centres and 59 mental health emergency departments.

Sources: The Life Rooms 10 Year Anniversary Report, Mersey Care NHS; UK Department of Health and Social Care.

Doors first.
Then the home base behind them.

February 1, 2027: The first door opens

A borrowed room in our community: same place, same hours, every week. Two trained hosts. Cost is people, not rent.

Years 1–3: More doors open

Three to five doors across San Diego County, each a fixed time and place the community knows. They stay open.

Year 3: The home base

A dedicated Ant’s Place with rooms for rest and healing — standing behind every door, so no host ever holds it alone.

Concept rendering: Ant’s Place home base at dusk

Every gift opens a door.

$100/month Funds basic monthly expenses (materials, snacks, outreach).

$1,000 Funds 1-2 gatherings with a trained host, a safe place and supplies.

$5,000 Funds several months of gatherings at one location.
$10,000 - Sponsors host training, outreach, and supplies to expand to new space.
$50,000 - Sponsors a room in the house.
$1M - Funds phase one outright. Names the location: “Ant’s Place, sponsored by the ___ family.” (Location to be determined. Let's talk.)