Rising youth homelessness a crisis we mustn't ignore

A new survey confirms that youth homelessness is on the rise. It's a complex problem that requires a concerted solution.

If you wanted to find me in the summer of 2000, I was most likely at a service for street youth — like the now-shuttered Street Outreach Services (SOS) and Youthlink Innercity in Toronto, or Covenant House in Vancouver. I was doing research on street youth suicide for my PhD.

During that summer, I met a young woman who was only 18, but had already been working in the sex trade for years. She was tack sharp.

Through the skilful persistence of the staff at SOS, and her own tough mindedness, she had left the sex trade, crack addiction and had a job and boyfriend who wasn’t involved in the streets. She was able to imagine a different life for herself. She was tough, funny and made light of a past that was nothing but violence and disappointment — at the hands of parents, through holes in the various so-called safety nets, until she hit the streets and entered a new landscape of violence and exploitation. I had interviewed her as a research participant, learned a lot about her life and hung with her and others in the SOS waiting area cracking jokes and talking nonsense for hours.

Then came a moment I will never forget. I was sitting in the staff area chatting with the employment counsellor when one of the outreach staff came in and told us that this girl who had dug herself out of hell had died of a drug overdose in the bathtub of a crack house.  READ MORE HERE.....