Throughout the United States, there are a large number of individuals that goes unnoticed. Hidden in right plain sight, but are overlooked. They can be our friends, family, classmates, or the person standing right next you to at this moment. There are young individuals who are facing the tremendous challenge of being homeless. They are overlooked by many in society. However, there have been countless individuals, groups, organizations dedicated to ending youth homelessness. However, they are confronted with challenges due to the lack of interest. The lack of interest found within society can contribute to barriers to ending youth homelessness.
What is Youth Homelessness?
Youth homelessness can be define as young individuals, ranging from age 12 to around 25, who are without any support from their families, and are either living on the streets or at a shelter. There are often “referred to as “unaccompanied” youth.” (National Coalition for Homelessness (NCH), 2007). Unaccompanied youths can be categorized as runaway-homeless youths, throwaways, and independent youths. Runaway- homeless youths are youths that leave home without any parental permission. Youths that leave their homes because parents encourage them to leave are categorize as throwaways. The final classified as independent youths who leave home because of family conflicts or other issues. (Aratani, 2009).
Since many youths goes unnoticed by society, statistics collected on the numbers of homeless youths are
Our text illustrates that there are various populations within the homeless community. These people are homeless for different reasons, whether its voluntary or involuntarily. Runaways and Victims of
“One diverse population that has continued to increase over the quarter of a century is composed of people who are homeless” (Baggerly & Zalaquett, 2006, p.155). Homelessness has become a growing problem in society because more and more people are finding themselves to be homeless and not knowing where to turn. Many people do not
This homelessness population consists of people from all age groups: infants, children, adolescents, adulthood, and the
Homelessness is a major problem in the United States. An incredibly vulnerable group is the homeless youth due to their young age and lack of education. According to Edidin, Ganim, Hunter, & Karnik (2012) on any particular night in the United States there are ~2 million homeless youth living on the streets, in shelters, or in other temporary accommodation. Youth become homeless for multiple reasons whether it be because they have aged out of foster care, ran from home, were kicked out of their home, or because they have become homeless along with their family members. Within the umbrella categorization of homeless youth there are high at risk subgroups, common misconceptions, and a serious concern of lack of support and medical services.
In youth homelessness these children, adolescents and even young adults are being exposed to many dangerous drugs, alcohol, and people.
Homelessness, especially among the youth (12-24 years of age), is difficult to capture in data due to the invisibility of this population. The homeless and independent youth are, generally, not part of formal institutions like homeless shelters or mental health systems. As a response to the dire circumstances these youths face on a daily basis, they come to rely on internal informal networks that they trust. Consequently, it is common for young, homeless and independent, individuals to temporarily stay with different friends: constantly moving from one couch to another. This network of trust is invaluable to this population and is a potential key for policy makers to look at unconventional methods to identify and address the most pressing needs.
Alone and troubled, surving the hardship of the world all by yourself. Youth are unfortunate to have life experience on how to survive the world, many youth don’t have job experience or money to support themselves to get back in school and live a normal life style. Becoming homeless at a young age puts a great deal of damage on teenagers, the longer time period a person is homeless can cause long term emotional and psychical harm considering the distant they have to go to just to survive. Living on the streets, youth doesn’t get three square meals a day like a average teenager would, they live off poor diets and lack of malnutrition causing the effects of having a
Young Adults homelessness is a growing problem statewide. Young Adults Lives program has enrolled 120 youth since the last three months. Living on the street creates a host of problems for young adult such as being at a higher risk of sexual abuse and having limited access to health insurance. Young faced a cycle of challenges such as feeling hopeless, which lead to interaction with law enforcement. Young Adults Lives need to provide more programs for young adults such as:
Finzel, Rochelle. "Homeless and Runaway Youth." National Conference of State Legislature. NCSL, 14 Apr. 2016. Web.
Research indicates that two-third of the adults experiencing homelessness in the U.S.A have not received a high school diploma or completed a GED. In the 2013-2014 school year, public schools reported 1,360,747 unaccompanied homeless students enrollment. Unaccompanied youth are those who experiencing homelessness while not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. Approximately 1.7 million youth experience homelessness on their own reported each year. They live in unsafe, dysfunction and unstable situations, including cars, parks, couch-suffering, shelters, and motels etc.... Most of these young individuals have left home due to unhealthy and unsafe family setting, including abuse and neglect: 20-40% of unaccompanied homeless youth were
Homeless youth are an unseen population. They may go unnoticed because they are forgotten about. They are not easy to identify because they do not have permanent housing. They may stay with friends and move from place to place or couch surf. Numerous homeless youth have left home for countless reasons. They may have nowhere to go, lack familial support, they may have suffered abuse at home, or they might be defiant with the rules at home and want to experience more independence an autonomy.
Many people tend to believe that homelessness just simply means not to have a home. However, there is more than just one official meaning for the term. Much of the literature uses the terms homeless and runaway interchangeably (Schmitz, and Kimberly Taylor, 2599). Definitions of youth homelessness According to the Webster New World College Dictionary, the word “homeless” is an adjective that means “having no home or permanent place of residence.” Webster defines the homeless as those typically poor or sometimes mentally ill people who are unable to live and therefore may sleep on the streets, in parks or local bus stations (Neufeldt, Victoria, and David B. Guralnik, 645). Websters Definition of the word “runaway”, an adjective, is to “have
Kim (2014) research study focuses on the rise in the number of homeless youth. The article explains a simple hypothesis that predicts the relationship between homeless and runaway adolescents in the USA and South Korea and describes an elaborate relationship concerning cross-cultural issues in the area of economics, politics, and culture. The author used articles for the review but disallowed information from reports, book reviews, and data from the government. Reviewers evaluated the research methods, and the researchers settled issues with inconsistencies in the evidence through auditing the articles and discussion.
There are many programs such as federal programs to prevent youth homelessness. Unaccompanied youth and children accounted for 6.5 percent of the total homeless population (36,907 people). Yong people are the future of our country, and they have the right to have the opportunity for a better life, it is not always their fault to be homeless, so giving them a second chance and supporting them for their future is vital for our communities. Advance Health and Housing Stability for Youth Aging Out of Systems such as Foster Care and Juvenile Justice. Enhanced pardon planning that connects youth to education, housing, health and behavioral health support, income supports, and health insurance coverage will improve re-entry back into the community.
When considerable people think about what kind of individuals are homeless, they often conceive of a shabbily dressed, elder male sitting in the front of a random doorway, with a wine bottle in a brown paper bag. However, homelessness for the past years has begun to be more visible. Homeless children are portrayed in welfare and academic literature as a category of "children at risk." Whatever transpires in early childhood can affect a child 's lifestyle. In young children, the results are harsh. Stress can result from major trauma, which can weaken the developing brain and lead to lifelong problems. Homelessness is becoming exceeding worldwide affecting countries with no regard to economical superiority. Children befall on the affected by: substance abuse at home, mental health, lack of literacy skills and schooling. Homeless children are not only affecting themselves as individuals however, also affecting society as a whole. Children are deprived of basic necessities of life, education, and health. Children end up on the streets for numerous reasons, which are rooted within the family’s instabilities and poverty. Living life on the streets has proven to be treacherous for children that don 't have place they can “home”. Furthermore, homelessness inhibits physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and behavior development of the children. Several ways to decrease the number of homeless children would be supporting programs that are dedicated to ameliorate children. These