In the United States, youth homelessness has dramatically increased over the last several years. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, more than 550,000 youth less than the age of 25 have experienced at least one incidence of homelessness for a week or more in 2014 (Aguiniga & Bowers, 2018). Most social work organizations engaged in homeless services tend to consider “youth” to be either ages 25 or 26 and under. There are many possible explanations as to why youth become homeless, but their reasons often differ from the general population of older adults experiencing homelessness. Homeless youth are disproportionately youth of color and LGBTQ, with LGBTQ being at a high risk of sexual assault and violence in the street (Sisselman-Borgia, …show more content…
In addition to these adverse outcomes, it is important to intervene as early as possible with these youth to prevent any cascading effects due to long term exposure to trauma. These youth are still experiencing brain development, and the trauma of becoming homeless in addition to previous trauma, and substance use can severely impact their brain development negatively. Substance abuse is common among homeless youth since it is often used as a coping mechanism for previous trauma they have experienced. It is also important to intervene with this population group in order to stop generational homelessness since it is a cycle many of these youth are already a part …show more content…
Many organizations providing services to the general homeless population and homeless youth are often grant or donation funded. These organizations can easily lose funding for specific programs and that can lead to an inconsistency in services provided to the homeless population. The programs that are offered by these organizations often do not have all the necessary services for youth under one roof which can lead to youth going back to the streets to search for other resources. Studies have shown the lack of referrals and communication between different agencies can also add to the inconsistency and lead to youth having a strong distrust in homeless service organizations (Sisselman-Borgia,