What is street-involvement? What is youth homelessness?
Defining homelessness is a complicated task. In Hamilton, we talk about street-involvement and homelessness among youth. Street-involvement often refers to a range of circumstances, including (but not limited to): absolute homelessness, living in housing that is unsafe, inappropriate or expensive that homelessness is a possibility, using services for street-involved youth, finding a sense of identity and support networks through street culture and youth who spend the majority of their time on the street. Homelessness (as we understand it, referring to youth) means having no place to live. Therefore, homeless youth are staying in homeless shelters, in abandoned buildings, in unsafe and overcrowded accommodations, flop houses, or outside (behind buildings, in parks, under bridges). Youth can cycle through homelessness and street-involvement in a number of different ways, a number of times. There are as many experiences of youth homelessness as there are homeless youth.
