Without A Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey

While these findings present clear evidence regarding the need for better access to
relevant, effective mental health and addictions interventions broadly, there are several
specific implications:
• LGBTQ2S youth are at
particularly high risk and have
unique needs as a function
of sexual and gender identity
considerations and the
systematic discrimination they
face.
• Female youth are facing greater
adversity and need services to
meet their unique and greater
need levels.
• Different profiles of risk and
resilience are present for
racialized and Indigenous youth
– indicative of the need for
culturally relevant interventions
that attend to areas of
heightened risk and capitalize on
areas of greater resource.
• Earlier age of first homeless
episode significantly increases
mental health risks for youth.
This underscores the need for
rapid and focused secondary
prevention responses.
• The strong connections
between mental health risk,
child protection involvement,
and exposure to violence and
neglect prior to becoming
homelessness, indicate that these
youth often experience extreme
adversity before they become
homeless. These challenges are,
by far, better addressed before
homelessness occurs and in the
contexts in which they occur
(e.g., child protection services,
schools, community, and family).
• Assessing and bolstering
social supports is an important
activity. It must not, however,
be considered sufficient in and
of itself for youth at the highest
degree of risk.
• In considering the nature of
street adversity, mental health
and addictions problems cannot
be considered in isolation – they
are likely driven extensively
by conditions of violence,
marginalization, and poverty.
Comprehensive approaches that
attend to all of these domains
are essential if mental health
services are not to be wasted
and ineffective in the face of
the challenges youth face while
homeless (Kidd, 2012).
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WITHOUT A HOME: THE NATIONAL YOUTH HOMELESSNESS SURVEY