What's causing youth homelessness in Nebraska?

June 7, 2016, 6:45 a.m. ·

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A new federally sponsored, nation-wide study is shedding light on why kids end up on the street in major US cities like Omaha, Nebraska. (Courtesy Photo)

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The federal government is making a big push to account for homeless youth across the United States. Three years ago, a study was commissioned across 11 major cities – including Omaha – by the Department of Health and Human Services to shed light on some of the major causes of youth homelessness. NET News talks with Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, project manager of the study.


NET NEWS: Tell us what you and your team define as "homeless" in this study. I think a lot of people consider homeless to mean sleeping out on the street, but it could be much broader than that.

MELISSA WELCH-LAZORITZ: "For this study we included any young person who was sleeping in an emergency shelter - or a transitional shelter - living outside, or couch surfing; basically anyone who didn't have a stable place to stay."

NET NEWS: You had focus groups and your team surveyed youth at shelters, but how did you connect with those kids who might not be found at homeless shelters or with out-reach agencies?

WELCH-LAZORITZ: "So we used a respondent-driven method to access some of the kids who might not be accessing any of these services already which means that we found a couple of kids maybe from a shelter or maybe just in areas where homeless youth are known to hang out and then we invited them to participate in the interview. After they agreed to participate in the interview we gave them three coupons to their friends, or other people they knew who were experiencing homelessness and were in our age range – 14 to 21. When their friends came to the interview, they received an incentive of an additional ten dollars."

NET NEWS: Did you find any disparity in terms of maybe race or sex with the kids you did identify as being homeless?

WELCH-LAZORITZ: "We didn't find any disparities in terms of sex. However, LGBT youth were very much overrepresented in the sample. It seems like homeless young people are much more likely to identify as LGBT. 33% of our sample was LGBT, and that's compared to about 3% of the general house population. There was obviously a big discrepancy there. Half of our participants had been in foster care or a group home setting."

NET NEWS: Many of these survey responses point to a falling out with family members where maybe they were asked to leave by parents or there was abuse and those are the primary reasons for not having a home anymore.

WELCH-LAZORITZ: "Yeah that's exactly right. So we actually found that over half of our participants ended up on a street because they were asked to leave by a parent. Another 25% ended up on the street because they had been physically abused at home and another about 25% had problems at home and more and it up on the street because their caretaker had a problem with drug or alcohol abuse. So basically they're really coming from homes that are chaotic and may not be the most stable places for them. That's one of the things that is really a misconception about homeless youth. People might think that they're leaving homes that are stable and secure but that's really not the case. Over 75% of them had been kicked out and the vast majority of participants and they couldn't return home if they needed to"

NET NEWS: What do these trends then tell us about maybe the state of services in Nebraska. Are these kids taking advantage of them? Is there a need for improvement there?

WELCH-LAZORITZ: "There's always room for improvement- especially in terms of shelter beds. We found that that was the number one service that these residents said they needed. Often times the waiting lists are very long and there are limits on how long they can stay – number of nights they can stay, and also age range that they serve. Outreach programs’ funding sometimes comes from the federal government, which they specify can only be used to help young people up to the age of 21. So after they turn 22, it becomes more of an issue because they can't use certain outreach program shelter beds and things like that. More shelter beds would be an awesome improvement and then also a coordination of care. There are quite a few agencies that serve homeless youth however they're not all connected to each other and so that means that a youth has to call each one, find out where they are, and get to them; and then fill out a decent amount of paperwork each time they go to a different agency. If there was more of a coordination with agencies to share that kind of paperwork and make recommendations to each other and referrals to other places, that would help a lot as well."