Language - Part 2

Street Kids, street youth, homeless youth -- does it really matter what label we use? Yes, it not only matters -- it governs our response. Language is a reflection of how we think about things, and our thoughts govern our actions. Are the young people in your program manipulative or resourceful, aggressive or assertive, resistant or independent? The language you use to describe their behavior will directly impact how you think about and provide service.

Whenever common language is agreed upon, we should identify the possible ramifications of that language and be willing to live with them. As a field, I don’t believe we’ve ever really thought about the effects of labeling the population as ‘homeless’ youth. If we ever did that exercise, we might not like the consequences of our choice. While there may be more, what follows are the Big 3 in my mind.

1) Self-screening effects

Bottom line, many of the young people who could benefit from RHY programs simply do not self-identify as homeless. This is particularly true in minority communities, but is also the case with some young people who are ‘couch-surfing’ or living out of motels or some other form of ‘housing’. It is also the case with young people who connect the label ‘homeless’ with adult homeless populations and don’t see themselves as being the ‘skid row’ type. Whatever the reason for their rejection of the label, a program identity that reduces a young person’s willingness to engage is violating the first law of outreach. Our choice to identify as a ‘homeless’ service may be cutting off access for some of the young people who need us.

2) Impact on services

We provide services to meet needs. How we view those needs directly impacts how we provide services. If youth are homeless, the solution is to get them a home -- thus the heavy focus on ‘roof-based’ services within the RHY field. I’m not saying that shelter/housing is a bad thing, or even an unnecessary thing. I’m only saying that it’s probably not the most important thing in terms of transitioning young people off of the streets. It is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Anyone who has ever been involved in RHY housing services should be able to tell you that simply putting young people in a place where there is a roof over their head does not mean that they are now ‘off of the streets’. That condition takes place as a result of conceptual and developmental changes, not changes in address.

Yet we are often so focused on the provision of housing that we fail to provide the housing in a manner that promotes conceptual and developmental changes. Instead, we see young people bombing out of our housing services, and we blame them. We see young people who refuse to enter our housing services in the first place, and we blame them. What we never seem to blame is the fact that we are approaching complex psycho-emotional issues of young people struggling to find their place in our world as simple economic issues of homelessness -- driven to a large degree by the language we use.

3) Blowback on young people

‘Blowback’ is a term that recognizes that for every action there is a reaction. It refers to unintended consequences resulting from intended actions. Labeling youth as ‘homeless’ was an intentional choice that made it made it easier to seek funding by joining existing funding efforts targeting ‘homeless’ populations. It also made it easier to bring young people out of the shadows at a time when talking about issues such as sexual abuse, prostitution, drugs, and other ‘taboo’ topics was … well … taboo. But that choice was not without some blowback, and points 1 & 2 above could be considered part of that blowback. A more concerning part, however, can be seen in the public’s reaction to ‘homeless’ youth when the young people fail to live up to the public’s image of ‘homelessness’.

Let’s face it; a homeless youth is cute. They are a sad child in need of love and a warm hearth and meal. They need a place to clean their innocent, dirty faces, and to be safe from the cruel world that has left them without a pillow to rest their head on at night. That’s the sub-conscious image conjured up when we speak of homeless youth to an uninformed public.

Then they see the young people our programs are serving. Foul-mouthed, armed, drug affected little criminals who are shoving all of society’s foibles and failures right back in its face. Hey! Where’s that cute little homeless kid you’ve been telling us about? This kid scares me. He/she’s a danger to our community. This is a law enforcement issue, not a social service issue. Let’s get those kids somewhere where we don’t have to see them!

And, once again, we blame the youth -- not because of who they are, but because they are not who we want them to be, driven in part by the language we’ve used to represent them. The further they fall from the public’s image of ‘homelessness’ (and, by the way, the more in need of our services they are), the less likely there will be public support for appropriate services to meet their needs.

Conclusion:

I’m not saying that we can fix all the problems with serving RHY populations by simply renaming them -- and I’m not altogether sure what would be a better label -- but I am saying that there are concerns with the ‘homeless’ label that are not being discussed or addressed within the field as far as I can tell. Opening the discussion would seem to be a good first step.