Many issues have been known to affect Merced-area youth, such as not having after school programs and high rate of youth homicide, but one of the larger issues is the disconnected youth. According to the definition given by Youth.gov, disconnected youth is defined as young people ages 14-24 who are homeless, in foster care, involved in the justice system, or are neither employed nor enrolled in an educational institution. Despite Merced's efforts towards reconnecting with the youth through establishing a Youth Council along with a large range of free services and programs offered such as Empower, Youth 2 Youth and Mojo, Merced has the highest level of disconnected youth (13.5 percent) statewide. (calendow.org.) Due to a large amount of disconnected youth, the youths in Merced are more likely to lead a less productive life in obtaining higher levels of education and a well paying job.
There have been many causes known to lead these youth to be disconnected. Those causes include unstable lifestyles of being low income or essentially living in poverty. These disconnected youth lack a support system or adult like figure to guide them. Disconnected youth are also impacted by their surrounding environments. They are affected in many negative
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Kids who grow up in unstable environments are impacted negatively. These unstable environments involve a lack of support system, constantly in need of money, poor housing environment and lack a positive role model. In the article “Homeless Students: Should aid programs be extended?” they mention how children end up homeless and why they do. The article states that due to unstable home environments students are less likely to graduate. According to research, “ 75 percent of those who become homeless during their teen years drop out.” Dropping out of school translate that teens who are disconnected youths will no longer choose to obtain a higher