# data[].attributes.body
Homelessness: is defined as having no fixed place to sleep at night

Ex. People staying in hotel/motels until their money runs out, staying with friends, sleeping outside or wherever they find space

Homelessness rate in Canada has increased and calling it a national disaster

26 000 people used the shelter systems in 1996

Homeless people migrate to the larger cities, 47% shelter-users in Toronto usually come from outside of the city

# data[].attributes.body
Youth leaving home stems from disruptive family conditions that make living on the street seem like a better alternative

Ex. physical, psychological, or sexual abuse, neglect and even abandonment. Some leave because of parents marriage breakdown or to have more freedom.

# data[].attributes.body
Residential instability. 20% of homeless youth had been in foster care before moving to the streets

More than 50, 000 youth run away from home, 10% of 50,000 youth  become homeless

# data[].attributes.body
homeless youth are those who leave home to work and live independently, but become homeless when they are unable to move back home after suffering a financial crisis.

Returning to their parent is not an option they perceive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Profile of homeless youth living in Toronto, on what people might find most surprising about them. (Melissa Renwick / Toronto Star)

Every weekday morning a crowd gathers outside a storefront on Yonge St., just north of the Eaton Centre, eager for the door to open so they can get inside.

They're not looking to get their hands on cut-price retail deals or the latest foodie fad offering.

They're homeless youth who have come to the Evergreen Centre for Street Youth looking for a meal, health care and help finding work.

Each day, about 150 youth pass through Evergreen's door, a few blocks from the intersection at Yonge and Dundas, the crossroads of Canada's busiest shopping district. It may also be the epicentre of youth homelessness in this country.
RELATED: Five homeless youth share their stories
On a given night, 6,000 people across Canada between 16 and 24 have nowhere to call home, representing 20 per cent of the total homeless population. In Toronto, estimates range from 900 to 2,000 nightly - far more than can be accommodated by the 489 beds in youth shelters.

Many homeless youth end up on Yonge St., attracted to gathering spots like the Eaton Centre and Yonge-Dundas Square, as well as services such as Evergreen and nearby Covenant House, Canada's largest shelter for street-involved youth.

"Our centre deals with a lot of the extreme cases," says Jesse Sudirgo, manager at Evergreen, who says the drop-in's clients are often dealing with serious mental health or drug addiction issues. Many are involved in sex work. "Prostitution's huge."

In Toronto, as many as 2,000 youth have nowhere to call home at night - far more than can be accommodated by the 489 beds in youth shelters. Joel Zola, 22, is one of them. (Melissa Renwick / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

The paths young people take to life on the street differ, but according to Covenant House, about 70 per cent of the shelter's clients left home because of family dysfunction, which could include abuse, neglect or parents' addictions. Poverty can play a role, but about half of the facility's clients come from middle- and upper-income families, according to the shelter's management.

Many homeless youth are fleeing situations where they felt like outcasts or were bullied. More than one in five youth shelter users identify as LGBTQ, according to the city's Street Needs Assessment.

Sudirgo believes it's easier to get homeless youth on the right path than it is their older counterparts. But the stakes are high. The longer a youth stays in shelters or on the streets, the greater the risk he or she will become homeless for the long term.

"They get entrenched in street life if we let them stay homeless very long, and here in Toronto we've got a big problem," says Stephen Gaetz, the director of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and a professor at York University's faculty of education. He notes that homeless youth in the city remain unhoused for an average of 1.5 years, a statistic he calls "horrible."

"It doesn't take very long when someone is street-involved, that their health decreases . . . mental health gets worse, their likelihood of being exploited either in the sex trade or through criminal involvement increases," Gaetz says.

The supports that young homeless people need to keep them off the streets are different from the adult population. Most young people who leave home lack basic life skills that would allow them to rent an apartment, make financial plans, or even cook for themselves. They're not only dealing with a lack of housing, but are also likely facing the loss of family relationships and other social ties that were severed when they left home, and doing so at a time when they're undergoing the turbulent psychological changes that accompany young adulthood.

Covenant House attempts to address all of these issues by offering multiple supports under the same roof, including employment and apprenticeship programs, food and clothing banks, an on-site school and a drop-in centre. The facility has 94 emergency shelter bed spaces, and 31 spots in transitional housing.

Bruce Rivers, Covenant House's executive director, says the shelter's three goals are to provide stabilized housing, access to education and employment, and peace of mind.

"If you do all three of those at the same time, you can make significant progress," he says.

Rivers says he's seen a lot of success stories at Covenant House, particularly in the shelter's Cooking for Life program, which connects youth to apprenticeships in the restaurant sector. Between 60 and 70 per cent of participants end up with a job, according to Rivers.

For all the good work that Covenant House does, Gaetz believes that Canada's supports for homeless youth focus too much on emergency shelters, instead of supplying long-term housing and preventing young people from losing their homes in the first place.

"We can't be picking up the broken bodies at the bottom of the hill forever. At some point we've got to go to the top of the hill and wonder why they're getting pushed off."

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Faces of Toronto's homeless youth | Toronto Star

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hundreds of young people call Toronto's streets home every night, and while the paths that lead them there may differ, their stories share common themes: broken homes, addict parents and struggles with mental health. The Star brings you some of their stories.

# data[].attributes.body
Walking across Canada to help end youth homelessness. Renfrew Mercury & Weekender (ON). from http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehcs/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=52749637-c3d0-44c5-bd12-92aca44dcfdc%40sessionmgr120&hid=123&bdata=#AN=AXLYREN2016092739939982&db=p3h

# data[].attributes.body
Unable to develop plans for forming a productive life structure

Some rely on begging or through illegal ways to earn money

Health is at risk because of their risky lifestyle. Since suffer from infections, malnutrition, and sexually transmitted diseases

Rate of psychological and psychiatric disorders are very high

# data[].attributes.body
Transition to adulthood is very difficult

Education is disrupted, and the chances of returning to education is slim

Limited Knowledge, skills and low self-esteem

Role confusion (Erik Erikson theory) since they have not formed a identity