Serving Youth in an Economic Downturn

Inside Part I: Youth Homelessness in Today’s Tough Economy Youth Homelessness in Today’s Tough Economy Can’t Be Complacent In His Words: A Youth Speaks Out about His Homeless Experience The Habits of Highly Successful Outreach Programs Three Rules for Working With Unaccompanied Youth Part II: Overrepresented Groups Among Homeless Youth Coming in From the Shadows: Overrepresented Groups Among Homeless Youth Serving Overrepresented Groups of Homeless Youth Down for the Count: Getting the Numbers on Youth Homelessness How Many Homeless Youth Are There in My Community? Resources for Identifying and Working With the Spectrum of Homeless Youth

Down for the Count: Getting the Numbers on Youth Homelessness (cont.)

A complete picture of youth homelessness may be elusive, especially in rural settings, where on-the-street counts are impractical. Nevertheless, to justify putting resources into their care, those serving any potentially homeless youth must do all they can to reasonably assess their numbers. Charles and others advise the following as philosophical guides to conducting counts.

Broaden the definition.  Charles said in counts in Baltimore, her team frequently encountered 20-somethings who were, by adult definitions, able to get jobs and take care of themselves, but who had been discharged or ran away from foster care with almost no independent living skills. Clark County researchers also looked at juvenile detention facility records in coming up with its estimates of youth homelessness.

Change where you look. Charles advises doing parallel counts with any municipal agency tasked with doing a homeless census, but also to partner with other youth-serving organizations, including homeless education coordinators, to find out where youth are. On street outreach missions by Philadelphia’s Covenant House, for example, outreach workers look in public restrooms, train stations and parks—and they ask other youth to identify places their unstably housed friends hang out.

Count again. Clark County’s research firm recruited 123 volunteers to count homeless youth, dividing their targeted areas on a grid and then randomly selected sections of the grid to be recounted. Because many youths’ experiences with homelessness are episodic, single point-in-time counts will always underestimate. Taking note of seasonal conditions that drive whether youth will seek shelter or stay on the street, some homelessness researchers make sure they count in more than one season.

Each one teach one. Youth-serving professionals are best equipped to help their municipalities estimate youth homelessness by teaching other systems how to recognize the signs of homelessness. Charles says that if a youth is frequently absent from school or tells a teacher she’s been staying at her grandmother’s house, simple follow up might identify that young person as homeless and quickly stabilize her living situation.

Resources for Identifying and Working With the Spectrum of Homeless Youth >>