Education For Young People In Shelters Was Already a Challenge — Then Coronavirus Hit

By |

More than 40,000 K–12 public school students in Washington experienced homelessness in 2017–18, a number that has nearly doubled in the past decade and likely will continue to grow because of pandemic-driven job losses. For these youth, remote schooling might mean attending class in a shelter room they share with their mother and two siblings. It might mean missing classes due to glitchy Wi-Fi or insufficient cellphone data. And, especially for homeless youth who are on their own, it might mean not having an adult who can help them with assignments and prod them to stay on track. 

gangs: Prehistoric cave paintings of many hands

Opinion: ‘For Many Years I Didn’t Believe I Was Human’

By |

In 2000, I was 14 years old, in Los Angeles' Skid Row. You wouldn't believe such a Third World slum existed within history's richest country; oh, but it did. It does. A section of one of the world's most glamorous cities set aside to hide thousands of homeless people, to hide America's unwillingness to deal with poverty, mental health, drug addiction and homelessness. It’s all swept under the rug, or under the shadow of downtown's skyscrapers from the top of the world, down to a grimy, violent underworld, where you had to fight just to eat and humanity was perverted into its most animalistic tendencies.

collaboration: Group of people stand around table in dark blue room, one woman gesturing.

Opinion: So, How Does This Collective Decision-making Work?

By |

We described in the previous column how the approach is four-tiered, beginning with collaboration. Collaboration is a term that has been bantered about and unfortunately, in some circles, gotten a black eye. The truth is that there is a best practice to collaboration that many don’t follow, and so it fails. Not because the concept is bad; it’s the user who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

homeless: young man sitting beside fence with beer bottle

Opinion: How Do We Make Youth Homelessness Effort Bipartisan?

By |

4.2 million.

That’s the number of homeless youths in America every year. 

This opinion piece is about the 4.2 million, how and why we marginalize them, and what can be done to unmarginalized them. 

homeless: Person in jean jacket climbing stairs; tray of filled brown bags on landing

New York Homeless Youth Feel Lonely, Stuck, Isolated

By |

First he lost his job as a shift manager at McDonald’s. Then the movie theater, the bowling alley, all the places he spent time in began to close.

homeless: Clothes spread out in city gutter.

Youth Homeless Providers Call on New York City Officials For Plan

By |

As a global pandemic looms over New York City, one group in particular might be getting left behind, homeless youth — a vulnerable subset of the general homeless population made up of runaway youth, LGBTQ teens and other young people experiencing homelessness. 

Change in Washington State Law Helps Parents With Their Teens’ Mental Health Needs

By |

For about three months, Karen Kelly would drive around Enumclaw, Wash., after midnight looking for her 13-year-old daughter, Hollie. She carried Hollie’s photo with her, pulling over to show it to everyone she saw. Sometimes she got lucky. She learned that Hollie had talked a hotel manager into giving her a free room, or that she was camping out near the P.O. boxes in a post office, or that she’d settled into a tent in the bushes behind an industrial park. Hollie remained in Enumclaw, a town of less than 12,000 40 miles southeast of Seattle.

Slideshow Focuses on Seattle Youth Experiencing Homelessness

By |

For the last year, the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange has been writing about youth experiencing homelessness, particularly in the Seattle area. This collection in Bokeh Focus is some of our favorite photos from that coverage.
Take a look at what Paul Joseph Brown, Karen Ducey and Matt M. McKnight found.

Tacoma: Depressed-looking young man with dark blue T-shirt, light blue shorts sits on edge of car trunk that has towels inside.

Tacoma Trying Individualized Way to End Youth Homelessness

By |

Malik Banks had been living out of his car in the Tacoma, Wash., area for about two months when the 23-year-old decided he could use some help.

One afternoon this August, he came to the REACH Center, which offers housing, employment, education and other services to teens and young adults throughout Pierce County. The lanky youth smiled broadly as he greeted peer outreach specialist William Terry, who also happens to be an old family friend.