Youth Homelessness

This case takes place in Wichita, Kansas, a midsize city in the Midwest. Located in Wichita is the Wichita Center for Families (WCF), an agency that provides a variety of services for at-risk families and youths. Alicia Hall is a 25-year-old MSW student from Wichita State University, currently interning within the "youth-at-risk outreach unit" at WCF. Alicia has 2 years of bachelor level case management experience with adults with mental illness and has a passion for the LGBT community. Alicia receives weekly supervision from the clinical director of WCF, Pete Anderson under the supervision of, the and. Nancy Gerard, a licensed professional counselor supervises Alicia's day-to-day practice. Alicia oversees

In recent years, the Long Beach homeless population has unfortunately increased. This includes an increase of children living in tents, cars and homeless encampments. By working together, the city, state, and federal governments can enact policies and programs that will more effectively serve homeless people. Although current policies are already in place, the laws and regulations can be re-defined to include more affordable housing and services. Everyone has to keep in mind the homeless people don’t always choose homelessness it is often a forced situation. We must have a some sympathy and compassion when dealing with homeless population. This photo was chosen because it represents part of Long Beach homeless population.

"Homelessness." The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. Eds. W. Edward Craighead and Charles B. Nemeroff. Hoboken: Wiley, 2004. Credo Reference. Web. 26 Oct 2015. This article talks about homelessness. The homeless come from single men, single women, adolescents, and families with children. Causing of homelessness are included poverty, unemployment, or other economic conditions; but the most important causes of homelessness are extreme poverty so that they could not afford a house. There are around 750,000 Americans are homeless every night and close to 2 million are homeless in a year. The effects of homelessness

Since homelessness is often viewed as an invisible social issue, the victims of the situation are usually unaware of the rights they possess according to certain federal protections. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (MVHAA), first started in 1987, is the main federal law that provides funding and guidance services to families that are classified as homeless. The mission of MVHAA is to protect mobility students from missing school days and minimizing transience (Canfield & Teasley, 2015). This law helps to remove barriers to homeless families and youth through certain provisions. One of the provisions states that homeless youth can remain in their established school even if they relocate outside of the school’s zone. This is in place to help keep the children in the same environment and on track with their academics. However, if students decide to attend another school, MVHAA requires the school to waive all required documentation for the child and enroll them immediately. Often times school social workers are appointed as liaisons between the school, the state’s education department, and the affected families. They educate mobility families on their rights as homeless families. MVHAA provides funding to serve

One of the most vulnerable homeless populations is the LGBTQ. There is around 110,000 homeless LGBTQ youth in America. They also make up to 20% of the runaway youths in the

Homeless youth are always dealing with poor nutrition, victimization, substance use, and abuse. Unfortunately the services provided are very limited and cannot help a huge chunk of the homeless youth. Homeless youth experience more substance abuse and drug addiction than non-homeless youth, this causes them to be mentally unstable and unable to be a functioning member of society. There are many temporary services provided such as shelters, drop-ins, meal programs, literacy improvements, and counselling programs; although these are available and there to help the youth, they are all flawed in their own ways.

The homeless population is growing at an incredible alarming rate. According statistical data from National Coalition for the homeless, “there are over 3.5 million homeless Americans, it includes approximately 1 million children of these more than 300,000 are homeless children on any given night.” Some include street children, runaway teenagers, young adults who might have been thrown out of their homes or released from jail are most visible living in our cities streets, towns, subways, underpasses and highways. Others suffer from mental disabilities, severe depression, persistent and untreated mental illness including addiction disorder such as drug abuse and

Homelessness can be a detrimental experience as a result of being exposed to constant stress and unpredictable weather. It may lead to families and individuals having to find a temporary refuge in an unsafe environment, or obtain food from resources that can be harmful. Individuals and families caught in these predicaments frequently are ineptitude in areas of housing stability, managing money skills, coping skills, and support systems which would be significant in helping them modify hardships. As a result, a vast proportion of homeless families, individuals, and children have been exposed to a variety of traumatic occurrences such as childhood abuse, domestic violence, combat-related trauma, sexual assault, and the like.

Many parents of the victims often have a hard time accepting the fact that their child is different and react in an unfavorable way. For example, in the book “Violence Against Queer People,” by Doug Meyer, who explains how most teens who come out to their parents are thrown out of the house. Being thrown out of their own home drives them to substituting school pastimes. “Drugs and prostitution replace school as a way of life. At the most critical time of their lives, their parents have denied them the support they need to become productive adults.” When Meyer says this he expresses how these young denied teens are abandoned when they are at the most critical part of their life; when they seek guidance. When most parents are in denial they choose to go to psychologists because they are convinced that it is just a “phase” and they will quickly get over it. There are also cases where parents would force their child to be

“Overall, researchers were able to document a ‘poverty-related effect’ on children’s mental health and behavior” (Bassuk 499). In the state of Michigan there were more than 38,000 homeless children attending public schools in the year 2013 (Seidel A2). Homeless children are at increased risk of dropping out of school because their parents are not aware of the federal law that was passed in 1987 specifically to prevent homeless children from dropping out of school. The law is called the McKinney-Vento law. Prior to 1987 homeless children were unable to meet enrollment requirements in schools because they could not show proof of residency, and did not have school and health records. The McKinney-Vento law ensures that homeless children are immediately allowed to enroll in school without proper documentation. Additionally the law, if followed, compels school districts to provide transportation and school supplies to homeless children, though according to Jeff Seidel of The Detroit Free Press, some districts are hesitant to identify homeless children because it is costly to provide them with supplies and transportation. “Advocates say there's also a disincentive to find homeless children. Once a district finds them, it has to pay to transport them to school and provide other services -- a tough job for many cash-strapped districts” (Seidel

For instance, a study published in 2009 discusses the importance of understanding the different aspects of this population in order to effectively help end youth homelessness. The study notes that are two typical forms of youth homelessness: children living in homeless families and unaccompanied youth. The first group, children living in homeless families, is essentially children who “live in families without a home” (Aratani, 2009, p. 4). Unaccompanied youth, then include those who are runaways, throwaways, and independent youth who have no contact with their family. Additionally, there is a multitude of factors that have been known to contribute to homelessness. These factors include, but are not limited to, lack of affordable housing, economic insecurity, behavioral health, etc. Research has found that the main contributing factors for children living in homeless families are the lack of affordable housing, poverty, and domestic violence (Aratani, 2009). Similarly, mental illness, substance abuse, and lack of affordable housing are the top contributing factors of homelessness among unaccompanied youth (Aratani, 2009). In addition to analyzing the factors that can cause homelessness, the article explores the impact that homelessness can have on youth. For example, homelessness can often lead to food insecurity since food supplies can be scarce, which can then have a negative impact on the child/youth’s overall health. Also, it can lead to juvenile delinquency, troubles with school, and “a greater risk of experiencing mental health problems” (Aratani, 2009, p. 7). When determining what programs and other resources are best fit to help end youth homelessness, it is important to understand the causes and impact of homelessness among youths in the United

In the community the attitude towards young people being homelessness is great as they are wanting to help young people in need. There are lots of youth services that help young people that are homelessness due to something that has been tragic leading them to being homelessness. The services value a young person’s personal values and help them out in any way they can. The impact of youth services is a great impact on a young person as they change young people’s lives by providing them with food, education and a job if that is the case. I strongly people that young people being homeless should not be happening to the young Australians. I believe that there should be a compulsory subject that is taught to students towards what to do you are felling that leaving house it the best outcome form a situation between their parents. The services that they can go to, that will help them out in any situation so that later on they don’t become

In “Our Tired, Our Poor, Our kids”(2001), Anna Quindlen claims that “There are many homeless mothers and children”(332).Quindlen addresses this issue by needing to find homes for many children the past month (“thousands”) ,as well for those families that wait by their belongings until found a room to sleep.The population of homelessness people isn’t decreasing it’s increasing rapidly.She reveals these problems in order to inform people the outrages numbers of homeless families ,and also “explains some of the effects of homelessness on children,emphasizes the importance of affordable housing,and touches on the effects of welfare reform on homelessness”(329).

The National Center on Family Homelessness at American Institutes for Research (NCFH) released a report exposing that 2.5 million children are homeless in America. (Mclean, 2015) California is the wealthiest state in the country but ranked third worst in the extent of homelessness, the second worst in policy, and in the lower half of the US in terms of risk and wellbeing, making it the third worst US state for child homelessness overall. (Mclean, 2015) Rent is increasing as income is decreasing or staying the same. Families are having to spend half or more on just rent leaving little money for other necessities. This makes families vulnerable to fall into homelessness. The CHPC released a report that found only 1 million affordable homes. The

Independent Variable: Perceived social support, age, sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity, family structure, social economic background, education history, history of mental illness, history of physical illness, perceived social support