Youth Homelessness: Why It Happens, Lasting Effects, and How to Help

December 02, 2021

Youth Homelessness: Why It Happens, Lasting Effects, and How to Help

According to the 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, "On a single night in 2020, 34,000 people under the age of 25 experienced homelessness on their own as 'unaccompanied youth.'"

While kids, teens, and young adults have faced different struggles and paths to homelessness, most of them have one thing in common: they do not become homeless by choice.

Image Credit: National Network for Youth

When working to ultimately end homelessness as a whole, it's important to identify obstacles that can show up earlier in so many people's lives; because many of these are contributing factors to homelessness and life-long struggles.

Why It Happens:

According to The National Network for Youth and The National Coalition for the Homeless,

Common contributing factors to youth homelessness include:

family conflict + rejection
- youth may have issues with their parents/guardians including abuse, addiction, neglect, or rejection in response to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression
economic struggles
- financial crises within the youth's family can lead them to be separated from their family by shelters, transitional housing, or child welfare policies
residential instability
- common among low-income families, a lack of affordable housing, employment, etc., leaves many youths forced to find their own form of shelter outside of their family dwelling
"opportunity youth" or "disconnected youth"
- being disconnected from education, employment, or social support may lead to youth homelessness

Subpopulations of youth and young adults that are at a higher risk of homelessness include BIPOC, LGBTQ+, young parents, those who have been in foster care, juvenile detention, jail, or prison, and those who did not complete high school.

Lasting Effects:

Homelessness can leave even more damaging, longer-lasting effects on youths than adults because they are still in a developmental stage, according to Covenant House.

Many homeless youths are also more likely to prioritize daily survival over deeper health problems, nutrition, or personal hygiene — which can lead to more acute and chronic health issues — because they had long been dealing with stress or poor health in their previous living situations. Homeless youths are also prone to engage in unhealthy coping behaviors and experience mental health issues including depression, anxiety, substance use, and PTSD.

*How to Help:

Right here in Portland, there are several organizations that provide different kinds of support for the many different needs youths who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness have; this also means that there are several ways for you to help fight youth homelessness too:

*These organizations' websites also have information on receiving support if you or someone you know is experiencing youth homelessness.

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References:

https://nn4youth.org/learn/youth-homelessness/

http://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-teen-issues/healthcare

https://nationalhomeless.org/issues/youth/