Doctoral Dissertation Research: Unaccompanied Homeless Adolescents in New York City

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will explore the experiences of the fastest growing but least researched subgroup of America's homeless population: unaccompanied homeless youth. This group consists of an estimated 1.6 - 1.7 million young people aged 14-24 who experience homelessness with no parent or guardian each year. This study will generate a detailed understanding of their trajectories into homelessness, their survival strategies, their social networks and relationships, and their connection to - or avoidance of - institutions like schools and shelters. This research will advance scholarship on poverty and urban marginality in three ways. First, it will update the sociological portrait of homelessness, to reflect the disproportionate - and growing - vulnerability of children and youth to becoming unhoused. Second, it will investigate the intimate ties between youth homelessness and several other urban social problems, like incarceration and unemployment, showing how homelessness is an important but overlooked factor implicated in the reproduction of urban poverty. Third, the study will contribute to emerging debates about "deep" or "extreme" poverty in the American city. 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. Unaccompanied homeless youth are often missed by policy interventions that target poor teenagers through families or through neighborhoods. Likewise, adolescents are often excluded from services aimed at homeless families and at homeless adults. They also have different needs, vulnerabilities and experiences. The study will develop a set of detailed policy recommendations about how unaccompanied homeless youth can be more appropriately and effectively served. This study will be based in New York City, a city in which 1 out of every 8 children enrolled in a public school has experienced homelessness in the past five years. Point-in-time counts estimate that between 2,700 and 7,000 young people are homeless and unaccompanied on any given night. But the transitory, hidden nature of this population means that we know little about their lives. This study has four central research questions. First, what are the events and trajectories that lead to young people becoming homeless and unaccompanied? Second, what does daily survival entail, and do these techniques involve risks or pose barriers to exiting homelessness? Third, how does homelessness affect social relationships, including with family members and with peers, both homeless and non-homeless? Lastly, what are the patterns of institutional engagement and support in the lives of unaccompanied homeless teens? To answer these questions, this research will use mixed qualitative methods to complement existing quantitative research by scholars working in other fields. This research will combine ethnographic fieldwork among unaccompanied homeless youth, with 50 in-depth interviews with the same group, and 25 interviews with adult professionals, including shelter staff, social workers, legal advocates and teachers. This will yield a close and detailed portrait of the trajectories, daily lives, experiences and needs of young people experiencing homelessness alone.