Without A Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey

3.1 Pathways into Youth Homelessness
For many young people, the route into homelessness is rarely linear or experienced as a
single event. More often, youth experience multiple family ruptures and multiple episodes
of living outside the home – often staying temporarily with friends or relatives. Moreover,
because of the limited availability of emergency supports for youth, combined with the
concentration of these supports in large urban centres, many young people are forced to
leave their homes, friends, school, and communities to access these supports. It is often
at the end of a long process that a young person accesses an emergency service, and
along the way many sleep in unsafe and unsanitary spaces (e.g., outdoors, on rooftops, in
abandoned buildings).
In a national survey conducted by Ipsos
Reid, it was suggested that while youth
are not generally overrepresented in the
homeless population, they are twice as
likely to report being homeless at some
point in their lives. This means that
many young people who experience
homelessness are part of the ‘invisible’ or
‘hidden’ homeless population, and as a
result, homeless services and supports are
less likely to reach them.
“I was kicked out of my house
by my mother. I had nowhere to
go and had to sleep in a bank.
I couch surfed many times at
friends’ houses and when I
couldn’t stay at friends’ houses,
I slept in a staircase.”
WOMAN, 17
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WITHOUT A HOME: THE NATIONAL YOUTH HOMELESSNESS SURVEY