Nan Astone
2008-06-03 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

Fifteen-year-old Cory tosses and turns on the sofa. He left home a year ago and has been crashing at his friend’s house for the past week, but his friend’s mom is starting to get tired of having him around. Time to move on, he thinks — too bad, this is nicer than most of the other places I’ve been. At least no one here is bothering me for sex in exchange for a place to sleep or some food.  And even that’s better than being found out and maybe being put in a foster home. 

Cory would rather stay invisible.

In Baltimore City, this is the other face of homelessness. Fresh, unlined. A kid you pass in the school halls every day. A teenager you fed a couple of times.  

An alarming number of young people in Baltimore City are homeless — as many as 2,289, according to public school system estimates. And these numbers reflect only the youth who are enrolled in school. On any given day, you will find 166 homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24 on city streets. They are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population.

For homeless youth, just making it through another day comes at a huge price. Homeless and displaced youth are exposed to many risks leading to poor health — sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, high rates of substance use, survival sex, pregnancy, depression, suicidal thoughts and sexual abuse. 

These youth are in danger not because they are living on the street. Usually, they stay temporarily with anyone who will take them in, be it friend, lover or family member. These youth are at high risk because they rely upon people who, at best, will soon come to the end of the resources they can share. Often, they depend upon people who are exploiting them — either sexually or in other ways.

Each day in Baltimore, more than 100 youth are “missing” — on the run from the foster care system and too scared to identify themselves to social service workers for fear they might be returned to the situations they just escaped. Foster care children are much more likely to be homeless, because all support ends when they become too old to be eligible to receive foster care services. The latest young people can stay within the foster system is until their 21st birthday, although many are cut off when they turn 18.  

The juvenile justice system is another familiar route to youth homelessness. Both systems should have discharge plans that include affordable housing, further education, health care, and job and other life skills training. 

Right now, we know that we need to know more — and do more. 

We need to find better ways to count these youth so they are not discounted.  

On the day of the most recent Census of Homeless in Baltimore, more than 90 percent of homeless young people were found outside of shelters and other places where homeless adults congregate and sleep.

 We need to support the efforts of the Baltimore Homeless Youth Initiative, a group of government and community agencies created to provide comprehensive care for Baltimore’s homeless and unstably housed youth.

We need to get the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act reauthorized. Among its improvements, recent legislation HR5524 and S2982 increase the authorization level from $105 million to $150 million for basic center and transitional living programs, as well as a $13 million increase for street outreach programs. 

Homeless youth are not just younger forms of homeless adults. They are different in many, if not most, ways.  A place to sleep for the night — such as a shelter — does not address all the needs of most homeless youth. 

We can do better, Baltimore.

Nan Astone is a professor and faculty member at the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Vignetta Charles is a doctoral student and researcher at the Center for Adolescent Health.