Without A Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey

helping youth stay in or complete school, get the employment training and experience
they need, participate in the labour force, and ultimately achieve greater success and wellbeing
as adults.
If we really want better outcomes for young people, we cannot let them become mired in
homelessness. The homeless young people of today potentially become the chronically
homeless adults of tomorrow.
5.4 The Importance of Targeted Plans Focused
on Systems Integration
The evidence from Without a Home makes clear that the longer we allow young people to
remain homeless, the worse their problems become and the greater the challenges they
face in trying to move off the streets. While a crisis response will always be important and
necessary, it cannot be the end game.
Any effective strategy to preventing and ending youth homelessness must take an
integrated systems approach. Our research findings reiterate the fact that the drivers of
youth homelessness include family breakdown, interpersonal violence, housing instability,
mental health and addictions issues, and problematic transitions from government
institutions such as child protection. Once homeless, housing instability continues, health,
mental health, and addictions worsen, and young people are increasingly exposed to
trauma-inducing criminal victimization. A major result of prolonged homelessness is
that young people become entrenched in street life and disengage from education and
employment. The causes and conditions of youth homelessness therefore touch on many
key institutions in society, from health care, to education, child protection, justice, and
employment supports, all in addition to housing. To make headway on the challenge of
helping young people exit the streets in the most healthy and sustained way, we need to
move beyond our expectation that the homelessness sector can solve this issue on its own.
Community planning
A comprehensive community plan to prevent and end youth homelessness is one that is
inclusive in its process, strategic in its objectives, sets real and measurable targets for change,
is clear to all stakeholders, and leads to real changes in young people’s lives. The most
effective method is to use a ‘collective impact’ approach that engages community leaders,
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WITHOUT A HOME: THE NATIONAL YOUTH HOMELESSNESS SURVEY