Doctoral Dissertation Research: Unaccompanied Homeless Youth

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Over the past several decades, the face of homelessness in the United States has transformed. Today, young people are increasingly vulnerable to homelessness. This dissertation will involve 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork with members of the fastest growing and least researched subgroup of the homeless population: unaccompanied homeless youth. This group is made up of an estimated 1.6 - 1.7 million young people aged 14-24 who experience homelessness with no parent or guardian each year. This research aims to advance scholarship on poverty and urban marginality in three ways. First, it will update the sociological portrait of homelessness. Second, it will investigate the intimate ties between youth homelessness and several other urban social problems, showing how homelessness is an important but overlooked factor implicated in the reproduction of urban poverty. The research will explore youth homelessness not only as a consequence of poverty, but also as a cause. Third, the study will use the problem of unaccompanied homeless youth to contribute to emerging debates about extreme poverty in the American city. This study will use ethnographic methods to learn about the trajectories of young people into homelessness; to chronicle the techniques by which unaccompanied homeless adolescents manage to survive and meet their daily needs; to map the form and content of their social networks and relationships; and to chart their patterns of institutional attachment and affiliation. The PI's will conduct 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Lynn, Massachusetts. Massachusetts has seen a sharp rise in the number of unaccompanied homeless youth over the past five years (Paci & Tian 2014). Estimates suggest that 50,164 homeless students are enrolled in Massachusetts' high schools (Paci & Tian2014). Lynn is appealing site because certain cities (such as San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Atlanta) are known to draw travelling young people whom scholars describe as part of a street subculture (e.g., Finkelstein 2005; Lewnes 2002). By locating this study in a smaller city, the PI's will avoid studying participants in a street lifestyle and focus instead on homelessness as it connects intimately to urban poverty. PI's will recruit participants by approaching several sites, including youth shelters, charities, outreach organizations, and, once school begins, high schools. I will also snowball sample through the networks of homeless young people to reach more potential participants.Findings from this research will be disseminated to multiple audiences, including sociologists, policy makers, and individuals and organizations who work with and for unaccompanied homeless youth.