The Winding Path of Homeless Youth
Last week I wrote about Rebecca Gomez’s criticism of foster care. She accurately notes that “a large proportion of foster children will find themselves homeless upon exiting care. The majority do not attend college; do not have stable housing; do not obtain employment that provides a living wage; do not own a car; have never managed money.”
Even if they’re not yanked from house to house, Gomez writes that foster children are “surrounded by treatment professionals including foster parents, case managers, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and special education departments. . . . They must gain the[ir] approval . . . to drive a car; take a trip out of state with their foster family; visit a sibling; participate in a contact sport; obtain medical care; be near a lake, pool, or ocean; or have a sleepover at a friend’s house. They do not make their own decisions. Decisions are made for them. They do not have the opportunity to critically think, to self-manage, or to learn from mistakes.”
True enough, but what’s the alternative? I have interviewed more than 100 homeless people who grew up in dysfunctional families. I have also read papers authored or co-authored by Kimberly Tyler, a University of Nebraska professor: Titles include “Growing Up Before Their Time,” “Early Family Histories and Transitions,” “Child Abuse, Mental Health, and Sleeping Arrangements,” “The Effect of Victimization,” “Foster Care Placement, Poor Parenting, and Negative Outcomes,” and “Trading Sex.”
Tyler describes the conflicted early lives of her interviewees, including familial substance use and psychological disorders. In 2016, she and coauthor Rachel Schmitz noted, “No study to date has directly examined the experience of homeless youth using a framework of early adultification.” That last word is an ugly but apt one in scrutinizing the results of early independence — forcing young people to provide for their own needs and sometimes commit to “premature caregiving” of others.
In the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Tyler quoted homeless individuals about family influences: “My dad and my mom both drank really hard. . . . My grandfather died from alcohol abuse. . . . My dad’s three brothers are all alcoholics and do drugs. . . . my cousins, they’re all drug dealers. . . . Dad gets abusive — both physical and sexual abuse. . . . [the abuse] happened every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, every time he was drinking.”
I have heard the same thing in my interviews of dozens of homeless people who usually emphasized sadness rather than blame. Tyler shows how many among the homeless are “at risk for modeling their parents’ behavior.” Violence is also common: Tyler heard from “Many young women . . . pushed down stairs, having their hair pulled out, and being hit in the head.” Sexual abuse from fathers or mothers’ boyfriends was common: “Every night after he got off work. And sometimes during the day my mom would leave and go somewhere, then he’d do it.” Some internalize that pattern and start looking for love in all the wrong places.
Tyler shows how family breakup typically means frequent movement. Here are two years in the life of one child: Dad’s house to youth center (three months) to group home (one-and-a-half months) to dad’s house (two months) to street (three months) to dad’s house (one month) to apartment (evicted after three weeks) to different apartment (evicted after two weeks) to dad’s house (few weeks) to an apartment (one month) to homelessness (two weeks) to mom and stepdad’s house (one month) to a different apartment.
Here’s the winding path of a teenaged orphan: life with an aunt and uncle who divorced, runaway life when the aunt re-married, life with friends for three months, a return to the aunt’s house, life in a group home, life in a shelter, life in outpatient program, life with friends and a boyfriend, life on the streets after eviction for smoking crack, life in a shelter, life in two drug rehabilitation programs, life in a transitional living program.
It’s a kind of dying.
Some think that a person after frequent moves will want to be rooted somewhere. That usually doesn’t happen: Tumbleweeds typically continue to tumble. An article by Tyler and Katherine Johnson reports that one-third of young homeless people traded sex for food, shelter, money, or drugs: Most didn’t want to but “were desperate and lacked alternatives.”
What can bring hope to homeless people who experience life as a pinball game? Tyler is lead author of an article that touches on what sometimes goes right: going to church, reading the Bible, and praying. Those are “protective factors” for homeless individuals — and we need more in-depth research on those.