Homeless Youth

4.9 of 5.0 (131 reviews)

Download now!

Contains
632 words

Category
Politics

The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

Homeless Youth

Powers, Jane L. and Barbara Jaklitsch. Reaching the Hard to Reach. Education & Urban Society, Volume 25, Issue 4, August 1993.

At some point in time, all teenagers are expected to leave home and venture out on their own. Separating from parents and gaining independence are two central tasks that teenagers must overcome in order to become adults. Teenagers usually learn how to make this transition through either home or school. Unfortunately, there are some teens today that do not fully develop these two tasks before deciding to leave home. These teens are the teens that we see out on American streets today. Leaving home at an early age can be devastating to the teenager, the cities they live in, and our society, in general. Teens are often victimized and exploited fairly easily while they are out on their own. Due to this, crime rates skyrocket in cities with a large homeless teenage population. Teens often turn to drug trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of criminal activity in order to survive. In turn, this also causes a wide range of physical and mental health problems, including substance abuse. Although there are large numbers of homeless teens, they still remain lacking in many services. One of the most important services is education. This journal article focuses on the barriers to educating homeless teens and mechanisms that are being created to assist in helping them to survive.

Education is severely affected by homelessness. Most homeless adolescents do not attend school because they are unable to make it to school every day. This, in turn, causes teens to fall behind or fail classes. This causes them to end up dropping out of school. Schools are unable to help the homeless teen. Instead, they cause the teen more frustration and depression, thus encouraging them to stay away from education. Without the basic skills that one earns during high school, the teen is unable to gain legal employment. This not only affects their current situation, but it also affects their future as well. Although some states have set up programs to assist homeless youth in gaining an education, the teen population still remains virtually ignored.

In this journal article, the definition of homeless adolescents is "unaccompanied youth who live independently of their families." When referring to the governmental definition, there is a difference between the homeless youth and the runaway youth. The runaway youth is defined as a person who is "under the age of 18 and has been away from his or her home or legal residence at least overnight, without the permission of a parent or guardian. The runaway has chosen to leave home and has a home in which he or she can return (395)." The homeless youth is defined as an individual who "has no shelter and needs services providing supervision and care."

It is important to understand definitional issues when estimating the scope of the problem of youth homelessness. It is very difficult to obtain an accurate account of homeless youth. The US Department of Justice found that at least 500,000 youth under age 18 become runaways and throwaways each year. Other studies have found that there are 2 to 3 million youth between the ages of 10 to 17 years are living on the streets, in abandoned buildings, or in "welfare" hotels. This means that there is anywhere from 1/2 million to 3 million uneducated, homeless youth on American streets today.

Due to lack of education, homeless teens are being exploited by adults. This means that the youth is likely to become involved in criminal activity. The length of time a young person has been on the streets should be considered in determining their educational needs. Increased time on the streets makes it harder to reach kids and ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 632 words of 1264.

Read the full essay

Keywords: homeless youth connection, homeless youth shelter, homeless youth programs, homeless youth alliance, homeless youth statistics, homeless youth awareness month, homeless youth services, homeless youth organizations

Similar essays

Hazing

By: ed truelove has been known as the right of passage into American colleges in the past and even still today. Primarily in fraternities hazing has been more so a problem than any other organization. The definition, application, and the prevention of hazing have been on going problems in past years and are still, in some areas are still p...

184 reviews

Download

Delinquints

Remember doing something mischievous or wrong when you were a kid and getting the label "delinquent" slapped on you ? Did you ever wonder what it meant ? That is what my topic for today is . . . juvenile delinquency. In this report I will: define juvenile delinquency, give the extent of juvenile delinquency, give some suggestions on what causes...

204 reviews

Download

Power Does Not Come From a Gun

Power. A word from which many meanings derive. To each individual, it means something distinct and it is how one uses their power that makes up who they are. Power does not come from the barrel of a gun. A gun can do nothing without someone there to pull the trigger. The power to take a life rests within the person, the gun simpl...

120 reviews

Download

Gender Differences

I was surprised finding out that the topic for our paper was about our feelings of belonging to the other gender. I think the title of the book "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus" by John Gray applies to how different men and women are in their attitudes, feelings and lifestyles. This experience for me will be enjoyable for me since...

130 reviews

Download

How The Simpsons Affects Kids

The Simpsons is one of Americas most popular television shows. It ranks as the number one television program for viewers under eighteen years of age. However, the ideals that The Simpsons conveys are not always wholesome, sometimes not even in good taste. It is inevitable that The Simpsons is affecting children. Matt Groening took up drawing...

200 reviews

Download