Homeless Youth And The Search For Stability

Youth are one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population. Although there has been much research on how youth become homeless and survive on the streets, we know very little about their pathways off the street and the many challenges that present during this process. This book relates the lived experiences of homeless youth as they negotiate the individual, sociocultural, and economic tensions of transitioning out of homeless and street contexts and cultures. Through interviews the authors gained privileged entry into the lives of youth in Toronto and Halifax over a year-long period. Through rich qualitative prose, quantitative elaboration, and comic-book narratives, participants spoke of courage, fortitude, strength, adversity, and at times, simple bad luck. Ultimately this became a story of fragility, complexity, living “on the edge,” and the (re)-building of identity.

Being Young and Homeless is an intimate portrayal of life on the street from the perspective of young people in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and Guatemala City. Jeff Karabanow passionately portrays street youth experiences in various locales, highlighting reasons for entering street life, struggles to survive on the street, encounters with service providers, and for some, the street exiting process. This insightful book is relevant for students and practitioners of social work, sociology, social administration, and public policy.

"Brings together leading and emerging researchers to advance understanding of the complex relationships between homelessness and health. Covering a wide range of topics from youth homelessness to end-of-life care, contributors outline policy and practice recommendations to respond to this public health crisis."--Back cover.

Chronic homelessness is a highly complex social problem of national importance. The problem has elicited a variety of societal and public policy responses over the years, concomitant with fluctuations in the economy and changes in the demographics of and attitudes toward poor and disenfranchised citizens. In recent decades, federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the philanthropic community have worked hard to develop and implement programs to solve the challenges of homelessness, and progress has been made. However, much more remains to be done. Importantly, the results of various efforts, and especially the efforts to reduce homelessness among veterans in recent years, have shown that the problem of homelessness can be successfully addressed. Although a number of programs have been developed to meet the needs of persons experiencing homelessness, this report focuses on one particular type of intervention: permanent supportive housing (PSH). Permanent Supportive Housing focuses on the impact of PSH on health care outcomes and its cost-effectiveness. The report also addresses policy and program barriers that affect the ability to bring the PSH and other housing models to scale to address housing and health care needs.

Adolescent homelessness is a growing problem that results in a variety of health challenges. This text is a practical resource designed to promote effective interdisciplinary health and social care interventions targeting adolescents who are homeless or at risk for homelessness. It is based on extensive interdisciplinary experience, reviews of pertinent research and insights and contributions of leading professionals who are directly involved in the care of these young people. Divided into four main sections, Section 1: (Chapters 1-7) section one is a review of the structure and professional involvement of program models targeting youth experiencing or at risk for homelessness to encourage broader understanding and utilization of principles and practices underlying effective programs and identify replicable components. Section 2: (Chapters 8-16) Section two is clinically focused with recommendations for working with adolescents and youth experiencing homelessness and interventions for common and significant medical and mental health conditions, and substance use disorders. Section 3: (Chapter 17) Reviews international agreements regarding stabilization and care of refugee youth and families, description of experiences of refugee children and youth in developed countries, and an outline of conditions from which refugee youth and families have left. Section 4: (Chapters 18 and 19) Engagement of homeless youth in research and future research directions to address needs of youth experiencing homelessness. Written by experts from a variety of disciplines, Clinical Care for Homeless, Runaway and Refugee Youth is a first of its kind text for physicians, social workers, public health workers and any other individual that works directly with these vulnerable populations.

In Staying Alive While Living the Life, Sue-Ann MacDonald and Benjamin Roebuck unpack the realities of living on the streets from the perspective of homeless youth. While much is written about at-risk youth, most literature on youth homelessness reduces their lives to flattened images with little room for the diverse, complex and individual nature of their experiences. Challenging the dominant youth-at-risk conversation by putting forward a framework of survival and resilience, MacDonald and Roebuck illustrate the ways that young people who experience homelessness demonstrate tremendous resilience when facing adversity, social exclusion and various forms of oppression. Drawing on conversations with homeless youth, this book focuses both on the external constraints imposed on their lives as well as the ways young people understand their circumstances and their approaches to problem solving. The result is a nuanced analysis that puts human agency at its centre, allowing readers to explore the challenges young people face and the internal and external resources they draw upon when making decisions about their lives.

There have always been homeless people in the United States, but their plight has only recently stirred widespread public reaction and concern. Part of this new recognition stems from the problem's prevalence: the number of homeless individuals, while hard to pin down exactly, is rising. In light of this, Congress asked the Institute of Medicine to find out whether existing health care programs were ignoring the homeless or delivering care to them inefficiently. This book is the report prepared by a committee of experts who examined these problems through visits to city slums and impoverished rural areas, and through an analysis of papers written by leading scholars in the field.

Youth between sixteen and twenty-four are considered the fastest growing segment of the homeless population in Canada. While much has been said about why young people enter street life and the culture they encounter there, little has been said about how they exit the street. Through the voices of street youth and frontline workers, Leaving the Streets offers invaluable insights into young people's attempts to exit street life, examining the motivations and challenges, as well as the supports and barriers that aid and hurt youth through this process. Based on the findings from qualitative research done in six cities across Canada, this book demonstrates that exiting street life is a non-linear process involving several layers of motivation and action and action, woven together in a complex web that facilitates the breaking of old social bonds and the building of new ones. From shelters and support programs to mental health and drug use, this book examines the structural and Personal barriers to exiting and details the services that are available, and those that should be available, to help street youth find housing, income and the strength needed to start a new life. Book jacket.