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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:35 am
Time: 11:35 am
Results for youth homelessness
5 results foundAuthor: O'Grady, Bill Title: Can I See Your ID? The Policing of Youth Homelessness in Toronto Summary: Homelessness, and its visibility, is back in the news in Toronto. Concerns about the scourge of panhandling have once again surfaced in local media with city councillors regularly weighing in on the ‘problem’. With little evidence that there is a dramatic increase in the numbers of people sleeping in parks or ‘aggressively’ panhandling on sidewalks, calls are once again being made for a law and order response to address this highly visible manifestation of urban poverty; to crack down on homelessness with tougher laws and stricter enforcement. All of this raises important questions about how we respond to homelessness in Canada. What does it say about Canadians when popular thought suggests that the appropriate way to address the problem of homelessness is through law enforcement? Is the use of police in dealing with people who are homeless as much a part of the Canadian response to homelessness as is the provision of shelter beds, soup kitchens and street outreach? And perhaps most importantly, what is the impact of a law and order approach to homelessness on the lives of people who experience such extreme poverty? This report sets out to document the criminalization of homelessness in Canada by exploring the relationship between homeless persons – in particular, street youth - and law enforcement officials (both the police and private security). Drawing from over 240 interviews with street youth in Toronto in 2009, as well as a review of official statistics on Ontario Safe Streets Act tickets in Toronto over the past 11 years, we explore the ways in which homelessness has been criminalized through a law and order agenda. Effective policy should be informed by research, not developed as a response to moral panics. Our research raises serious questions about the use of law enforcement as a strategy to address the visibility of homelessness in Canada. Details: Toronto: Street Youth Legal Services, Justice for Children and Youth; Homeless Hub, 2011. 94p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 12, 2013 at: http://www.homelesshub.ca/ResourceFiles/CanISeeYourID_nov9.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Canada URL: http://www.homelesshub.ca/ResourceFiles/CanISeeYourID_nov9.pdf Shelf Number: 129619 Keywords: Homelessness (Canada)PanhandlingPolicing HomelessnessPovertyStreet YouthYouth Homelessness |
Author: Bigelsen, Jayne Title: Homelessness, Survival Sex and Human Trafficking: As Experienced by the Youth of Covenant House New York Summary: In recent years, the plight of human trafficking victims has received a great deal of attention among legislators, social service providers and the popular press. This attention is overdue, as for years, youth forced to engage in prostitution were at best ignored, but more often were treated with contempt, labeled as prostitutes and charged with crimes. Youth forced into labor servitude were routinely overlooked altogether. As society begins to learn more about the growing problem of domestic trafficking, some questions remain, including even the most basic question: How many people are currently being victimized by trafficking right here in the U.S.? Answering this question is not an easy task, because victims are often reluctant to come forward and seek help. This reluctance is partly because perpetrators frequently convince their victims that if they attempt to seek help, no one will believe them; instead they will be thought of as criminals or prostitutes. Victims’ previous experience with law enforcement often only reinforces that belief. Additionally, a lack of any central system to identify and count victims of trafficking leaves policy makers with inaccurate data on the number of domestic trafficking victims, making it difficult to budget and promote appropriate public policy. In order to prevent trafficking and assist survivors, we must first learn to identify the victims. At Covenant House New York (CHNY), we have seen firsthand the difficulty in identifying victims. As New York City’s largest provider of services for homeless youth ages 16-21, we provide comprehensive care including shelter, food, clothing, counseling, medical and legal assistance, case management, job training and education services to over 3,000 youth each year. And since we opened our doors in 1972, we have always known that traffickers and other exploiters seek out vulnerable youth to recruit and victimize. Yet young people do not arrive at the doors of our shelter stating “Help, I have been trafficked.” Instead they say, “Help, I need food and a place to sleep.” Although we were certain that there were large numbers of trafficking survivors among our clients, we were having difficulty identifying them due to the reluctance of young people to disclose their experience. For this reason, we sought out the assistance of the Applied Developmental Psychology Department at Fordham University to help us develop and scientifically validate a screening tool to better identify trafficking victims among our youth. In addition to developing the tool, we hoped to learn more about the type and amount of trafficking our youth have experienced to better inform both our practice and our advocacy. Using the tool we developed, we surveyed a random sample of 174 youth between 18 and 23 years old. Details: New York: Covenant House, 2013. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 19, 2013 at: http://www.covenanthouse.org/sites/default/files/attachments/Covenant-House-trafficking-study.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.covenanthouse.org/sites/default/files/attachments/Covenant-House-trafficking-study.pdf Shelf Number: 129650 Keywords: Human Trafficking (U.S.)ProstitutionYouth Homelessness |
Author: Gibbs, Deborah Title: Evaluation of Services for Domestic Minor Victims of Human Trafficking Summary: RTI International conducted a participatory process evaluation of three programs funded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) to identify and provide services to victims of sex and labor trafficking who are U.S citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPR) under the age of 18. The evaluation was funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), also part of DOJ. The goals of the evaluation were to document program implementation in the three programs, identify promising practices for service delivery programs, and inform delivery of current and future efforts by to serve this population. Specifically, the evaluation described young people served by the programs, their service needs, services delivered by the programs, the experiences of young people and staff with the programs, and programs' efforts to strengthen community response to trafficked youth. OVC funded three programs that differed substantially in their organization and service delivery approaches: - The Standing Against Global Exploitation Everywhere (SAGE) Project, located in San Francisco, serves adults and youth affected by sexual exploitation. Prior to the OVC grant, they provided life skills programs, advocacy, counseling and case management for girls, including those in the juvenile justices system. - The Salvation Army Trafficking Outreach Program and Intervention Techniques (STOP-IT) program, located in Chicago, was founded by the Salvation Army and grew from that organizations engagement in local trafficking task forces. Under the OVC grant, STOP-IT expanded their services from foreign trafficking victims to domestic youth engaged in sex trades. - The Streetwork Project at Safe Horizon, located in New York City, serves homeless and street-involved youth with drop in centers, a residential program, counseling, health care, legal advocacy and other services, offered by Streetwork staff and co-located providers. For this participatory evaluation, the RTI team worked closely with staff from the three programs to develop instruments and methods. Programs collected information on clients served and on the services provided to these clients between January 2011 and June 2013. The evaluation team made five site visits to each program over the course of the grant period, during which they conducted a total of 113 key informant interviews with program staff and partner agencies and compiled case narratives describing the experiences of 45 program clients. The evaluation addressed four questions: 1. What are the characteristics of young people who are trafficked, including both sex and labor trafficking? 2. What services do young people who were trafficked need? What services do the OVC-funded programs provide, either through their own resources or through partner agencies? 3. How is the implementation process viewed by program staff, partner agencies, and those who receive services? 4. How are programs working to strengthen community response to trafficked youth? Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2014. 115p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 9, 2015 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248578.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248578.pdf Shelf Number: 134576 Keywords: Child Sexual ExploitationChild TraffickingForced LaborHuman Trafficking (U.S.)Sex TraffickingStreet WorkersVictim ServicesYouth Homelessness |
Author: Dank, Meredith Title: Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex Summary: Based on interviews with 283 youth in New York City, this is the first study to focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) youth; young men who have sex with men (YMSM); and young women who have sex with women (YWSW) who get involved in the commercial sex market in order to meet basic survival needs, such as food or shelter. The report documents these youth's experiences and characteristics to gain a better understanding of why they engage in survival sex, describes how the support networks and systems in their lives have both helped them and let them down, and makes recommendations for better meeting the needs of this vulnerable population. Details: Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2015. 94p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 18, 2015 at: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/2000119-Surviving-the-Streets-of-New-York.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/2000119-Surviving-the-Streets-of-New-York.pdf Shelf Number: 134958 Keywords: Gays, Lesbians and BisexualsProstitutesProstitution Sex WorkersYouth Homelessness |
Author: National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty Title: Alone Without A Home: A National Review of State Laws Affecting Unaccompanied Youth Summary: This report provides a state-by-state review of laws in 13 key issue areas that affect the lives of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. Topics include status offenses, emancipation statutes, health care access, consent and confidentiality statutes, and juvenile justice system statutes. It also offers an overview of the range of approaches taken by jurisdictions and the relative prevalence of these approaches and includes detailed indexes where advocates can find the relevant laws in their state or jurisdiction. Importantly, the report also provides recommendations for policy changes in each of the 13 issue areas, with a view towards strengthening the supports available to unaccompanied youth. Details: Washington, DC: The Author, 2019. 422p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 27, 2019 at: https://nlchp.org//wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AWAH-report_2019.pdf Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://nlchp.org//wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AWAH-report_2019.pdf Shelf Number: 154775 Keywords: Homelessness Juvenile Runaways Poverty Status Offenses Street Children Unaccompanied Youth Youth Homelessness |