Open for Business: Exploring the Life Stages of Two Canadian Street Youth Shelters

Youth shelters have emerged as significant resources for homeless and runaway adolescents. Through participant observations of shelter culture, review of agency archival materials, and in-depth interviews with 21 shelter workers (front line staff, middle managers, and upper-level executives), this analysis explores the life stages of two Canadian street youth shelters, highlighting the dramatic transformations in their internal operations and external environments. This paper also offers an understanding of organizational evolutionary processes

Travailler pour survivre : exploration du travail des jeunes de la rue

Le présent article explore les diverses formes que prennent l’emploi et les « petits boulots » dans la vie des jeunes de la rue. L’étude a été faite à Halifax, au Canada, et porte sur un matériel tiré d’entretiens menés auprès de 34 jeunes. Les résultats de l’enquête suggèrent que l’économie du travail à laquelle doivent faire face les jeunes de la rue revêt un aspect autant formel qu’informel. Ils montrent aussi que ces jeunes sont motivés mais vivent aussi des enjeux tant personnels qu’environnementaux. La plupart des jeunes interrogés réalisent des activités informelles rémunératrices parmi lesquelles figurent entre autres la mendicité, la pratique du squeegee (du nom anglais de la raclette servant à nettoyer les pare-brise), et l’art ambulant, la vente de créations artistiques, la composition et la déclamation de poèmes, la diffusion de blagues et autres activités créatrices. La diversité de ces activités témoigne de l’esprit d’entreprise et de la capacité de résilience de cette jeunesse itinérante. Pour survivre, les jeunes sans-abri sont en effet prêts à entreprendre un grand nombre de tâches souvent peu valorisées dans notre société. À vrai dire, il leur est surtout difficile d’accéder à un travail socialement reconnu. Pourtant, la société, en s’inscrivant dans une logique de criminalisation de certains types de pauvreté, réprime le plus souvent les activités informelles qu’adoptent les jeunes comme stratégies de survie.This paper explores how employment and labor are situated within the lives of homeless youth and is based upon the findings emerging from in-depth interviews with 34 youth in Halifax, Canada. The findings suggest that street-involved and homeless young people are straddling formal and informal work economies while mediating layers of external and internal motivations and tensions. For the most part, youth interviewed engaged in informal money-making activities including panhandling, squeegeeing, busking, making and selling art, performing poetry and/or jokes, among many other creative pursuits. The diversity of these activities demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity/resilience of street-involved young people. They are willing to undertake any number of often undesirable tasks to survive. The reality is that the participants in this study could not very easily engage in formal work. In addition, their stories showed how society takes particular effort to criminalize certain types of poverty – in this case much of the informal work in which homeless youth engage.Con base en 34 entrevistas a fondo con jóvenes de Halifax, Canadá, el presente artículo analiza el lugar que el trabajo formal e informal ocupan en las vidas de los jóvenes de la calle. La investigación sugiere que los jóvenes que habitan o realizan actividades en la calle oscilan entre las economías formal e informal, con diversas mediaciones, motivaciones y tensiones internas y externas. La mayoría de jóvenes entrevistados realiza actividades cuyos ingresos son informales, entre ellas la mendicidad, el limpiado de parabrisas y diversas actividades creativas como la interpretación musical, la fabricación y venta de arte y la presentación de poesía y comedia, entre otras. Esta diversidad de actividades muestra el espíritu empresarial y la creatividad y perseverancia de los jóvenes de la calle, dispuestos para sobrevivir a emprender actividades muchas veces consideradas indeseables. Una realidad es que los participantes de este estudio no podrían fácilmente obtener empleo formal. Además, lo que cuentan ilustra la forma en que la sociedad se empeña en criminalizar cierto tipo de pobreza, en este caso el trabajo informal en que los jóvenes de la calle se autoemplean

Toward Housing Stability: Exiting Homelessness as an Emerging Adult

This paper explores the lives of formerly homeless young people as they transitioned towards housing stability. The study employed a longitudinal design involving 51 street youth in Halifax, N.S. (n = 21) and Toronto, ON (n = 30). This paper sheds light upon the pathways through which young people transitioned away from homelessness using the developmental lens of emerging adulthood: a stage involving numerous developmental struggles (identity, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between) but also an age filled with hope and possibilities. There are numerous interrelated factors at play that allow participants to regain a sense of citizenship with mainstream society. While housing in itself did not shape these young people\u27s sense of stability, it influenced feelings of health, happiness and security. Yet, our participants, as a particular segment of the youth population who have transitioned out of basic homelessness, continue to describe their current lives in terms of fragility and instability. For most, opportunity for experimentation and identity exploration was often curtailed by processes outside of their control and struggles with the consequences of profound disempowerment —past trauma with family and/or current struggles with public sector structures and services. As a result, many felt abandoned and stigmatized by the very resources whose mission it is to assist

Youth Homelessness in Canada: Implications for Policy and Practice

Youth homelessness is a seemingly intractable problem in Canada. In communities across the country, people are increasingly aware of the sight of young people who are without a home, sleeping in parks, sitting on sidewalks or asking for money. What do we know about these young people, and what should we do? Youth Homelessness in Canada: Implications for Policy and Practice aims to fill a gap in the information available on this important issue by providing an easily accessible collection of the best Canadian research and policy analysis in the field. If we are going to solve youth homelessness in a meaningful way, we need solutions that are informed by the best research. This book has been written with this in mind. In this volume, leading Canadian scholars present key findings from their research on youth homelessness. In an effort to make this research accessible as well as relevant to decision-makers and practitioners, contributing authors have been asked to address the ‘so whatness’ of their research; to make clear the policy and practice implications of their research so as to better inform the efforts of those working to address youth homelessness. The contributors to this book are committed to supporting the development of more effective solutions to youth homelessness. Not only can we do things differently, we need to. And research on youth homelessness can help make a difference.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Youth Homelessness in Canada: Implications for Policy and Practice

Available also in print format from the York University Bookstore.This book aims to fill a gap in the information available on young people who are without a home, sleeping in parks, sitting on sidewalks or asking for money. This is an easily accessible collection of the best Canadian research and policy analysis in the field. 27 contributions, 501 pages

The Economics of Being Young and Poor: How Homeless Youth Survive in Neo-liberal Times

Based upon in-depth interviews with 34 youth in Halifax and seven service providers in St. John\u27s, Montreal, Hamilton, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary, the findings of this study suggest that labor occurs within a particular street context and street culture. Formal and informal work can be inter-related, and despite the hardships they experience, young people who are homeless or who are at-risk of homelessness can respond to their circumstances with ingenuity, resilience and hope. Often street-involved and homeless young people are straddling formal and informal work economies while mediating layers of external and internal motivations and tensions. The reality is that the participants in this study cannot very easily engage in formal work. There is a dearth of meaningful formal work available, and when living homeless there are many challenges to overcome to maintain this work. In addition, there are few employers willing to risk hiring an individual who is without stable housing, previous employment experiences and, most likely, limited formal education. Therefore, street youth are left with informal work that provides them with survival money, basic needs, and a sense of citizenship, but which also invites belittlement, harassment, and mockery

On the Front Lines: Nonprofits in the Homeless-serving Sector During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article examines the experiences of the nonprofit, homeless-serving sector during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative interviews were conducted with staff and volunteers from frontline organizations in the two largest communities in Nova Scotia, Canada. Participants reported much strain on their organizations' human resources, but also the ability to adjust service delivery mechanisms quickly in order to continue offering supports. Most reported greater in-kind contributions from businesses and community members as well as more funding from the federal government in particular, albeit with administrative burdens and defined timelines. Nonprofits played a leadership role in developing responses to serve the needs of those experiencing homelessness, including developing comfort centres, installing portable toilets in downtown locations, and moving those without housing into hotels. They also advocated to government for state-level responses to those without housing, including calls to invest in new units and enhance funding for frontline service providers. At the same time, nonprofits reported working across sectors, noting better communication and relationships with state actors as well as other nonprofit organizations as a result of their COVID-19 response

Street Youth Labor as an Expression of Survival and Self-Worth: Voices from Youth in Guatemala City

This paper explores the ways in which employment/ labor are situated within the daily lives of Guatemalan street youth. The youth interviewed primarily engaged in informal money-making activities. These activities not only demonstrate the entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, and resilience of street-involved young people, but their need to undertake any number of often undesirable tasks to survive. Findings from this study suggest that such work can provide street youth with greater self-confidence and self-esteem – reshaping their identities as “productive citizens.” However, such work, primarily due to its very public nature, can also re-marginalize young people as “unworthy” and “non-citizens.