A New Yorker’s one-time criminal charge, juvenile probation and homelessness

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In the eyes of court officials with say-so over whether he remains free or on lockdown, Nasheem Heath has mostly made the right moves since, at age 16, he was arrested for pointing a pistol at a random stranger and snatching that man's necklace and cash. Heath has not been re-arrested. He has held a seasonal job with a moving company. What he still doesn’t have is a home to call his own or the kind of income that would let him afford it. I was angry,” said Heath, now 20, who was a homeless kid on that night in May 2017 when he committed that crime.

youth justice disabled people legal guardianship: illustration of an antique 2-sided scale with colorful pastel cloud background

Opinion: Vulnerable youth need justice, and legal aid needs community

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Everyone deserves access to justice. Eight years ago, I took a chance that the community would show up to support legal services – and justice – for vulnerable kids and young adults. 

I’ll never forget the first client who walked through our doors or any of the clients I’ve represented. As I step down from leading Arizona Legal Women and Youth Services (ALWAYS) and turn the reins over to a brilliant successor, I can’t help but reflect on all that I’ve learned, felt, and hoped during my time running a legal aid center. At ALWAYS, we serve human trafficking survivors and children and young adults affected by homelessness, abuse, and the foster care system. With the exception of trafficking survivors, everyone we serve is 24 years old or younger.

homelessness: 2 women, 1 man discuss notes on whiteboard

Opinion: Youth Themselves Must Help Design Supports To Protect Them From Homelessness

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(Series: Part 7 of 7)
Part 1: How Do We Make Youth Homelessness Effort Bipartisan? Part 2: America’s Biases Marginalize Youth, Drive Them to Homelessness
Part 3: Collective Decision-making Can Neutralize Politics of Fear
Part 4: So, How Does This Collective Decision-making Work? Part 5: Youth Homelessness Is a Symptom, Not a Cause
Part 6: To Work On Youth Homelessness, Brainstorming, Decision Analysis Strong Tools
There are policies and practices that have been proven to work for communities that embrace them. Adopting such measures need not be a politicized action. In fact, all major federal juvenile justice reforms have involved bipartisan support and legislators working together across the aisle.

homelessness: Person sitting on the street with help sign

Opinion: To Work On Youth Homelessness, Brainstorming, Decision Analysis Strong Tools

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(Series: Part 6 of 7)
Part 1: How Do We Make Youth Homelessness Effort Bipartisan? Part 2: America’s Biases Marginalize Youth, Drive Them to Homelessness
Part 3: Collective Decision-making Can Neutralize Politics of Fear
Part 4: So, How Does This Collective Decision-making Work? Part 5: Youth Homelessness Is a Symptom, Not a Cause
Generating alternatives is key to effective decision-making because it provides the decision-makers in a collective body with an array of choices from which to choose. The more alternatives, the better the odds of identifying the solution best suited to resolve the problem. Decision theorist Robin Hogarth describes this process as follows: 

Imagination and creativity play key roles in judgement and choice.

sex trafficking: Homeless teenage girl sitting near brick wall outdoors

Youth At Greater Risk For Being Sex Trafficked If Homeless, LGBTQ, Minority

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Sexual crimes are prevalent domestically and globally, and sex trafficking — people brokering other humans for sex — is no exception. Data suggest about 4.5 million people are currently trafficked, 945,000 of whom are children. Across the U.S., over 40% of cases investigated between 2008 and 2010 involved minors. 

The problem is widespread, but research has identified several common risk factors for domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST): age, ethnicity, sexuality and housing status. These risk factors are briefly elucidated here, and guide our recommendations for future research, practice and policy. Trafficking is defined as “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” Further, a commercial sex act is “induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age,” so age is a critical aspect of DMST. 

In fact, DMST victims are often young.

homelessness: Fight Poverty Not the Poor protest

Opinion: Youth Homelessness Is a Symptom, Not a Cause

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(Series: Part 5 of 7)
Part 1: How Do We Make Youth Homelessness Effort Bipartisan? Part 2: America’s Biases Marginalize Youth, Drive Them to Homelessness
Part 3: Collective Decision-making Can Neutralize Politics of Fear
Part 4: So How Does This Collective Decision-making Work? Now that we have equalized the playing field among the political and ideological spectrum, let’s turn to two more groups of stakeholders that must be at the table and included in a governor’s executive order — advocacy groups and youth. 

In New Mexico, for example, the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness must be at the table. They are the largest advocacy group with a statewide network of programs and shelters having been advocating the longest. They are rich with knowledge and experience of the problem and the means to go about approaching it, but they need the backbone and support of the various state actors who can contribute collectively to build a much stronger network as well as a more formidable statewide approach.

homeless shelter: Animation showing curly-headed boy with headphones

Washington State Young Adults Often End Up Homeless After Leaving Treatment

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Speaking over breakfast at a homeless drop-in center a week after arriving at the shelter, Patrick described his situation as “futile.” In that environment, he said, you don’t have the freedom to pursue your dreams. “You’re not really living a life if you are living here,” he said.

It would be another year before he found an apartment through so-called rapid rehousing, which provides federally funded rental assistance for up to 12 months. In Washington state, thousands of children and young adults like Patrick experience homelessness soon after exiting psychiatric and substance use disorder treatment.

homelessness: Teenage girl sleeping on street, sitting against brick wall

Opinion: America’s Biases Marginalize Youth, Drive Them to Homelessness

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 (Part 2 of 7) | Read Part 1 here

Social psychology has found that someone may decide someone else's behavior has one of two causes: dispositional or situational. Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic of a person — personality traits including attitudes, values and belief — rather than to outside forces. Situational attribution assigns cause of behavior to some situation or event outside a person's control rather than to some internal characteristic. Take, for example, those times when we feel compelled to explain a remark or conduct that offended someone. We tend to explain that our comment or act was influenced by something that happened earlier that day or what somebody else had said to deflect it from being seen as a flawed personality trait. 

But this is where the two attribution causes can be difficult to assign.