Without A Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey

4.3 Mental Health and Well-Being
Poor mental health is among the most prominent concerns for Canadian homeless youth
populations. The challenges people face while homeless have a significantly negative effect
on mental health (Gaetz et al., 2010; Kidd, 2013; Van den Bree et al., 2009), and mental health
and addictions challenges often lead to homelessness. Generally, there are complex mental
health and addictions challenges among this population. This complexity often manifests itself
in the form of severity, co-occurring conditions or issues, and exacerbation due to the extreme
marginalization that this population experiences. The services available to these youth are
seldom adequate, having been designed for stably housed youth populations with natural
supports (Slesnick et al., 2009). The result is an underserved population, often experiencing
severe and complex forms of mental illness and addictions, whose poor mental health begins
to snowball as they confront homelessness. This often leads to further marginalization, unmet
needs, and worsening mental health (Karabanow, 2004; Kidd et al., 2016).
The results of the national survey highlight these challenges – pointing to a high degree of
unmet service needs and the need for approaches tailored to priority populations.
“I got poor family relations and struggle with anxiety and
depression. It has made it almost impossible to apply any
constant effort without being sucked back down into anxiety
and depression. When I get housing it lasts a few months then
people get stupid or life gets to me and the anxiety leads to
depression and I am stuck at a standstill again. It is like living in
hell dealing with it some days.”
MAN, NO AGE GIVEN
Mental health distress and risk
For our survey we used a well-validated questionnaire that measures mental health
symptoms and distress (Dennis et al., 2006). Findings indicated that a total of 85.4% (942)
of the youth in our study fell in the ‘high’ symptom/distress category. This is indicative,
in the general Canadian population, of youth midway between inpatient and outpatient
psychiatric care levels.
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WITHOUT A HOME: THE NATIONAL YOUTH HOMELESSNESS SURVEY