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1. Intro
2. Social Media
3. Neill Public Libraries
4. Neill Public Library Computers
5. Behavioral Health Center
6. Palouse Mall
7. Planned Parenthood
8. Condoms
9. Birth Control
10. Alcohol and Cigarettes
11. Drug Abuse help
12. Sojourners Alliance
13. Sojourners Alliance Interview
14. Public Bus System
15. Food

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Throughout my research paper on how technology can benefit the sexual and mental health of homeless youth, one thing can up multiple times. That one thing was how the internet can connect you to people and how homeless youth can use it to stay connected with their home based peers such as their family and friends. Talking to someone who knows what you have been through and who you are comfortable talking with, means that there is a higher chance of going through with their advise which can really help with mental and sexual health issues. Communicating your problems with someone you are comfortable with can make things so much easier to deal with. It is also a lot easier to talk to family and friends who you are familiar and comfortable with about sexual health questions and ways to be safe. So much research has been done on both mental and sexual health problems with homeless youth and how talking to home based peers can really benefit how the youth are dealing with their mental illness and how to be safer with their sexual activities.

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As technology can be used to homeless youth to benefit their mental and sexual health, not all homeless youth have access at their fingertips. I went driving around Pullman with my friend to see if we could find a public place with free internet access. This public library was found and there are many more just like it all over the United States. Homeless youth can go into the public library and use the computers to communicate with their home based friends and family about life or sexual topics. The computers are free to use to anyone who comes into the library, so homeless youth don't have a problem with having access to them. While here, I talked to a few librarians who told me they have seen a few homeless adults and teens come into the library to use the computers.

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As my friend and I went inside the Neill Public library. We went to check out the computers. The computers are available for use by anyone who visits the library. We looked up mental health and sexual health tools just to make sure that the computers could be used for that and they could. The librarian's here told us that they sometimes have homeless people, mostly homeless youth come in and use the computers although they don't know what they have used them for. I told the librarians, when they see the homeless youth again, to tell them that the computer can be used as a resource to benefit their mental and sexual health. They can use them to keep in touch with their home based friends and family so they can talk about their problems in a safer environment with safer people.

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This is the Access center at Washington State University. It deals with mental health issues much like other behavioral health centers across the United States. Although this one is only for students at WSU, there are places that homeless youth can go to to get help. Most homeless youth have a mental illness and using technology with internet access, those youth can see if there is a place in their area that they can go to to get help with their illness. Technology is also available to keep in contact with their friends and family from their previous home which has been proven to help deal with their mental illness. Mental illnesses make it very hard to deal with life and homeless youth especially need to have a way to deal with their illness so they can put all their effort into finding food or a place to live.

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Palouse mall is the mall in Moscow, Idaho. During the day you wouldn't find many or even any homeless people hanging around there. Many people have told me that many homeless families can be seen hanging around the mall at night. I came back to the palouse mall at night and found one homeless family there. They did not allow me to take pictures or record an interview but they did talk to me about technology. When I talked to the homeless child with them, I asked her if she felt she had any mental illnesses. Basicallt she he said she knew she did and that being homeless wasn't easy. They had been living out of a van and they come to the mall to see if anyone would give them food or money. I asked them if they had internet access and they said yes. I then talked to them about how they can use the internet to find a place to stay or to get help with their child's mental illness. I told their child to try and keep in touch with her home based friends because research shows that that has been beneficial more homeless youth with mental illnesses before.

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Planned Parenthood is an organization that deals with sexual health. They provide cheap and easily accessible health care services. In New York city there is a branch of planned parenthood called Project Street Beat, where vans drive around with a mobile medical unit inside. This helps the homeless with HIV prevention and risk reduction. After I learned about this, I went inside planned parenthood and asked them if they had any such program like that here in Pullman or Washington state in general. They said that California was trying to create one, but they don't know of any in Washington. Although they can't provide free sexual health care for the homeless they can provide them with cheap sexual health care. They often have homeless adults and sometimes homeless youth come in for condoms or STD/STI tests.

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The sexual health of homeless youth is a big concern as it is harder to get preventative methods to make sex safer. These condoms were free from a planned parenthood booth at Washington state university. Although homeless youth are not found on the campus there are plenty other places they could to go get free condoms to have safe sex that can prevent them from getting a STD, an STI, or even becoming pregnant. Such places could be a local doctors office or a planned parenthood located near them. Technology can be used to locate places that have free condoms or where people can find very cheap condoms to purchase. I have looked this up myself to make sure it is possible and I found websites and places that provide condoms. Homeless youth can do the same thing and find places where they can get some.

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Sexual health is more than just STD's and STI's. It is about being safe in general. Birth control is often apart of being safe. Homeless people in general can hardly deal with raising a baby, it would be even harder for a homeless youth to have to deal with one. That's how birth control deals with sexual health of homeless youth. Now you may not think it is possible for a homeless person to get birth control but with technology they can. In the state of Washington, through the Take Charge Program, people who aren't insured can qualify to be apart of this program and receive free birth control. Many homeless youth are going to be participating in sexual activities no matter what, with free birth control they can participate without the worry of becoming pregnant. The internet can benefit the sexual health of homeless youth in the way of providing services to stay safe and become protected.

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A few months ago, while wandering Pullman with my boyfriend we discovered a place that looked kind of like this but much dirtier. We didn't go in there because we noticed a young looking man smoking cigarettes with a bottle of alcohol and a bag with what looked like his belongings in it. We could tell he was homeless. Alcohol and cigarettes are expensive, and usually homeless people don't have that much money. Now we don't know for sure how this man had gotten those things but we can only assume. For a homeless person to buy such things they must have some kind of substance abuse issue because the smart thing to do would have been to purchase food or socks, or any other things that are needed when living on the street. Lots of homeless people including homeless youth have substance abuse issues because it helps them deal with their life. Drug/alcohol abuse often times stems from a mental illness because such things can be used to make the pain go away for a short period of time. With the use of technology, research has been done that shows internet can help homeless youth stay away from drugs and alcohol and even help them recover from it. This is done by keeping in contact with families and friends who care about you and who can offer advice that the homeless person will listen to and follow through with.

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As I did my research on how technology can benefit the mental and sexual health of homeless youth, I never actually looked up any resources myself. I just took the word of the authors in the peer reviewed papers I read. Just a simple google search of "drug abuse help for the homeless" shows many websites that can provide the homeless with the help they need. Although this was a general search, a more specific search with the homeless person's location would still show some good websites that can help them with their problem. Substance abuse if often a result of a mental illness that the person doesn't know how to deal with. They turn to drugs to help them deal with the pain. This is especially true for the homeless, homeless youth in particular. For the majority of homeless youth, they all deal with some kind of mental illness. Professional help isn't always available to them so often times they turn to drugs for help since they are so easily obtained.  Drugs can make mental illnesses worse though and getting help with drug abuse can lead to help with their mental illness.

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Sojourners's Alliance is a homeless shelter in Moscow, Idaho. Only residents are allowed inside so I couldn't speak to anyone in the building. I found this place using my phone. Without internet access this shelter would have not been found. Homeless youth can use their mobile phone or any computer with internet access to find this place. Having some place to call home can greatly increase the mental health of someone, especially homeless youth. These youth don't have to worry and stress about where they are going to sleep at night which can help them feel less depressed and anxious.

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Public buses are a cheap way of getting a ride to someplace when you need one. They are also a good way for homeless people to keep themselves off the street. Many homeless people including the homeless youth population will often times buy a bus ticket and ride the bus until the bus is done running for the day. This keeps them in some shelter where it can be warm and where the weather isn't affecting them. Although this is a Pullman bus and since this is a college town you rarely will find any homeless people riding the bus for this reason. Doing this is just a temporary solution to finding a place to live for a little while. Having access to technology can allow homeless youth to find a more permanent place to live instead of having to pay for a bus ticket everyday, sometimes even multiple times a day. Homeless youth could also be worrying about if they will get kicked off the bus or not because they aren't using it the proper way. Internet takes away the worries of having to pay for the bus all the time and wondering if you are going to get kicked off the bus because you can look for a permanent safer place to live.

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Along with using the internet to help find a place to stay for the night, the internet can also be used to find other resources. Such as food. Many homeless people, especially homeless youth just don't have the money to buy food and often times have to resort to other means of getting some such as stealing or digging through dumpsters for something that doesn't look moldy. Technology can provide homeless youth with places to go for a home cooked or very cheap meal. They can find the address of a food bank close by or sometimes when they find a place to stay, food comes along with it. Everyday, trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from really affects your mood and factors into depression, which is a mental illness that most homeless youth have developed. With technology, they have to worry so much less about finding good food. That means they have one less thing that is bringing down their mood and factoring into their mental illness.