Youth Homelessness in Today's Tough Economy
The 12-year-old boy came because his grandmother’s home in the Florida Keys was foreclosed. With his mom in prison and the whereabouts of his father unknown, he had no choice but to seek services at a runaway and homeless youth program.
Then there were the two brothers who were living in a car with their mother after she lost her job and subsequently, their home. She sent them to a shelter so they could get three square meals every day. Theirs was a happy ending: Mom found a new job and an apartment within three weeks, and they were reunified.
More unfortunate was the 14-year-old girl from San Diego County who ran away from home due to the turmoil caused by money troubles. She’s been repeatedly picked up for prostitution.
Around the country, runaway and homeless youth organizations are facing the challenge of accommodating more youth as a result of the current economic downturn. The relentless surge of home foreclosures, massive unemployment, stifling consumer debt and bankruptcies are conspiring to break up families and force more young people to the streets, youth workers say.
“Unfortunately, there has been a drastic increase” in young people needing emergency shelter, says Maria Mayola, director of community relations for Covenant House Florida in Orlando. “For two and a half to three months, we were well over capacity. We have been making special arrangements, using our chapel to accommodate more youth. For the first time in our history, we are operating off a waiting list.”
Steve Jella, associate executive director of San Diego Youth Services, says he’s seen a marked increase in youth seeking services for a variety of reasons, most of which can be associated with our troubled economy.
“Some of the programs I serve here focus on the eastern part of our county, which encompasses urban and rural areas. We’re noticing a lot of trends. [One community] has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the county and at the same time, it also has the highest rate of where parolees go. So there are a lot of youth and families that we traditionally serve now coming in with significantly more severe problems,” he says.
How Big Is the Problem?
Some areas of the country have not seen increases in young clients, but networks of youth-serving professionals are certainly talking about it.
"We have seen an increase in families coming to us requesting temporary assistance for them or their children because of the economy, but we’re trying to track this so that it’s not just anecdotal,” says Stephen Bardy, executive director of Safe Harbor Runaway Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, which runs a street outreach program and a basic center program. Ten of the basic center’s 16 beds were filled at the writing of this article.
“I’m hearing a lot of it,” says Bardy, referring to his colleagues talking about the economy driving more youth to their shelters. “I’m not sure we’re seeing it. But because it’s happened and we’ve not experienced this before, more people are talking about it, and in talking about people are making it larger.”
Indeed media reports have tracked decreases in youth homelessness in pockets around the country, but the problem is real—and growing, says Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy for the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Part of the difficulty in knowing how many youth have recently become homeless lies in the fact that youth have always been more difficult to count than adults. Many don’t want to be found. But so far the scant data from schools and other organizations tracking trends matches the anecdotal evidence that youth workers are talking about, he says.
Swell in Numbers Takes Toll on Agency Services
A study produced late last year by the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth and First Focus found 459 districts reported an increase in the number of homeless students served.
Many homeless students are middle class youth who’ve never had “system” exposure. Parents seek emergency care while the family gets settled. But others have troubled backgrounds, with substance abuse in the home and trouble at school, which when combined with economic problems, force them out of their homes. Particularly at risk are older youth, sometimes called throwaways, who may be left to fend for themselves when a family falls on hard times.
The rise in the number of children needing help is also creating more financial pressures on agencies facing budget cuts. In areas hardest hit by the recession, such as Florida and California, youth workers report an uptick of more than 25 percent in new youth seeking services.
Get Ready, Help Is Coming
The good news, says Berg, is that help is on the way in the form of the federal stimulus package, which is slated to put $1.5 billion into preventing homelessness and enabling people who lose their homes to find new ones quickly. Organizations should be preparing applications now, he says, adding that in many cases the money is going to state and local governments, which will be looking to contract with nonprofits that serve the homeless and the poor.
“Providers should definitely find out what’s going on and what the plans are in their area for using that money,” says Berg.
Moreover, where they realize they cannot access funds because of an eligibility issues, homeless youth-serving organizations should be lining up to network with the people who do receive the funding, he says. He says RHY programs must make sure the money is used well and that all efforts must be well-documented so that the problem will be more defined and results can be shown.
