Homeless Youth Summit - Part One

One of the reasons for the briefness of last Friday’s blog entry is because I was speaking as a panelist at a County-sponsored “Homeless Youth Summit” here in Portland. The panelists were each supposed to answer two questions. The first question was; what will it take to end youth homelessness in our community; followed by; what is one action the current system can undertake to contribute to ending youth homelessness. I thought I’d take some time this week to share my answers to these questions.

In answer to the first question, I told the audience that of all the questions I’m asked on this topic this is the question I hate the most. I hate it because I hate my answer, which is -- we’re not going to end youth homelessness. And one reason we’re not going to end youth homelessness is because we’re asking the wrong questions. The fact is, when we look at young people on our streets, we are not looking at an issue of homelessness, we are looking at something much more complex.

I really wish we had never attached the “homeless” label to youth on the streets. I understand how it happened; it made it easier to represent the issue to an uninformed public, and cashed in on funding streams for homeless populations. But it has also yielded mistaken approaches based on an assumption that we are dealing with a socio-economic issue. This has resulted in a focus on “roof-based” services (if they’re homeless, the obvious answer is to put a roof over their heads) and achievement-based outcomes (if this is a socio-economic issue, then we just need to get these kids jobs). Of course, anyone who has provided direct services to this population for more than a few minutes can attest to the fact that putting a roof over their heads does mean they are “off the streets” -- at least not in terms of their behaviors, belief systems and the issues they have yet to resolve.

To quote somebody I deeply respect (myself, from my Street Culture manual) the streets aren’t under your feet, they’re under your scalp, and being “on the streets” is psycho-emotional, not socio-economic. In other words, for some young people, being “homeless” on the streets meets certain developmental needs that are not met by alternatives to the streets. This leads us to the real question, which is not what will it take to end youth homelessness, but rather, how do we respond to the fact that there is a segment of young people in our community whose needs are not able to be met by traditional social structures such as family, school, and existing safety nets (foster care, etc.). To answer that question, we need to understand why these structures are failing them, and this is where you open up a Pandora’s box.

The reasons why an individual young person ends up on the streets are as numerous as the number of young people out there, but there are some common themes. We know that 20-40% are out there because traditional structures don’t accept their sexual orientation. We know that a majority have abuse, neglect, and abandonment in their backgrounds, often exasperated by the complete failure of existing social services to adequately intervene and provide appropriate support and guidance. We know that many have undiagnosed mental health issues and learning disabilities, and that there may have been inadequate recognition of the effects of childhood traumas resulting in needs beyond the capacity of even caring, attentive families to deal with. The bottom line in all of these factors is that we have young people whose developmental needs are not being met by family, school, and state systems, either due to malice or inadequacy, and the only alternatives available to them are incarceration, or the streets. It’s not that they’re homeless, it’s that the alternatives to the streets that seem viable to them do not meet their developmental needs.

So, the first thing it will take to end youth homelessness is for us to stop dealing with the issue as one of homelessness. It is an issue of youth development, or, more specifically, a lack of appropriate community options for young people who are having a difficult journey through adolescence.