COH-AWH-What_Would_it_Take

MOVING FORWARD
To ensure better outcomes for youth who are
struggling, we need to prevent poverty in the
homes of young people before they experience
homelessness. Findings from this study and the
Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness
Survey demonstrate that a great number of youth
experience poverty at a young age, and yet we
often provide resources only after a young person
becomes homeless.
“The first time that I ever
really realized that food was
a hard thing to get was when
I was here and Calgary and
I watched my brother eat
a chicken strip out of the
garbage from a KFC bucket.”
CALGARY YOUTH
If we want to prevent youth homelessness, we
need to ensure that young people’s families have
the income to support their growth, well-being,
security, and education.
This means that poverty reduction must be a central pillar of youth homelessness prevention. It
also means that we need to embed youth homelessness prevention within federal, provincial/
territorial, and municipal poverty reduction strategies.
We also need
to ensure that
our prevention
efforts are based
on a candid
assessment of the
current Canadian
economy.
Income inequality continues to grow in many Canadian cities, with
the mass accumulation of wealth for a few and deep poverty for
many (Green, Riddell, & St. Hilaire, 2017). The job market today is
difficult for almost any young person (Ng, Lyons, & Schweitzer, 2016).
In this context, the deeply held belief that youth who are homeless
can “bootstrap” themselves out of poverty through employment is
severely out of step with economic reality. The additional challenges
that youth experiencing homelessness face, such as poor access
to education or discrimination on the basis of class, make it even
harder to find gainful employment. Faced with these difficulties, it is
unsurprising that some youth feel forced (or coerced) into sex work
or drug dealing in order to survive (Gaetz & O’Grady, 2002).
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE? 43