Young Adults
open door act
For the purposes of this Plan, the category of unaccompanied youth includes unaccompanied minors under 18 and young adults between the ages of 18 to 24, including parenting youth. At the national level, efforts are underway to improve data collection, coordinate Federal data systems, and invest in research to better understand the scale and nature of youth homelessness.
Traumatic experiences
Most unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness, particularly those in at-risk groups, have significant experience with trauma. Traumatic experiences can include multiple types of abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. Youth often leave home as a result of a severe family conflict, which may include physical and/or sexual abuse. Research also shows a high prevalence of depression, suicide initiations, and other mental health disorders among youth who are homeless; chronic physical health conditions including asthma, hypertension, tuberculosis, diabetes, and hepatitis; and high rates of substance use disorders
Challenges for Homeless Youth
Lack of having a supportive safe environment to test their ability to make decisions on their own. Homeless/Runaway Youth learn survival skills, which don't translate well in an stable environment. Because survival mode only thinks about the now, causing new levels of relationships. In survival mode relationships are often abusive and/or exported by another who knows that the other depends on them for survival. i.e. sex trafficking.
These new taruma, in addition to the taruma they received from home, often effects the ability to make and form healthy and emotional bonds with others. If a youth leaves home because of their sexual orientation, the streets invites them to fully explore who they want to be. But does not prepare their confidence in gaining a career and their financial future.
STMC trauma-informed care
Both trauma-informed care and positive youth development provide essential frameworks for understanding the context in which young people’s outcomes can improve. Valid and reliable screening and assessment of trauma, social-emotional functioning, health, and other behavioral needs are central to an intervention model that meaningfully incorporates risk and protective factors. With well-implemented screening and assessment processes and tools, systems and programs can better respond to the specific needs and strengths of youth who experience homelessness and can better serve as pathways to get to better outcomes in stable housing, permanent connections, education or employment, and well-being. More information on risk and protective factors for youth as well as pathways to better outcomes can be found in the Federal Framework to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness.
Youth benefit from focused attention by systems adapted to respond to the full range of their unique needs. Assistance is needed to help youth access employment and pursue education and training opportunities, and to transition from youth-focused systems like child welfare and juvenile courts to adult service systems that provide mental health services, housing, health care, and other basic needs. While progress is being made, better tools and greater integration of data systems are still needed to improve our understanding of the numbers, characteristics, and needs of youth who are experiencing homelessness. support of Casey Family Programs. This is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, seek the help of a lawyer.
Causes
Many of the causes of homelessness for individual adults are similar to causes of homelessness among families. People experiencing homelessness have little or no income. They cannot afford a place to live. There is insufficient affordable or subsidized housing. They may have limited access to housing opportunities because of past criminal records, substance use disorders, or untreated mental illness. Their social support networks are frail or non-existent. Survival—seeking food and shelter—becomes all-consuming.
It is difficult to get a job without an address or a place to store your belongings. Mental illness and substance use disorders sometimes result in people being screened out or expelled from shelters, transitional housing, or public housing. It is important to note that some people who experience homelessness as individuals have minor children who are not with them. People often seek to reunify with these children, who might have been in foster care or staying with relatives or other family members, when they move into housing.
Solutions include the basics: jobs that pay enough to afford a place to live, affordable housing, better access to income and work supports, and expanded access to health and behavioral health care, including trauma-informed care. Individuals become homeless because of a shortage of housing, support, and care, but also because the services that do exist are often fragmented and difficult to access. Better coordination across programs and services is needed. Mainstream programs need to pay attention to housing stability, focus on homelessness prevention, and connect people to housing resources.