Study: Needs of state’s homeless youth unmet

Groups examine root causes that often send teens to the streets

SAN ANTONIO — The needs of homeless and runaway youth in Texas are not being adequately addressed in the Lone Star State, a study by two advocacy groups has found.

The study, conducted by Texas Appleseed and Texas Network of Youth Service, which focus on social justice and children’s rights, examined the root causes of youth homelessness, the myriad negative consequences that flow from it and possible solutions.

Many homeless or runaway youth in Texas have fled foster care placements or abusive home environments or were kicked out by parents, often for being gay or lesbian, the study’s authors said. Once homeless, these youth are at increased risk for a range of bad outcomes — dropping out of school, entering the criminal justice system, falling prey to addiction and sex trafficking and struggling with mental illness.

The study also found that nearly 6,500 children and teens were apprehended in 2015 in Texas for running away, with blacks and Hispanics overrepresented among those referred to detention.

Last year, Bexar County had the third-highest number in the state of youth who were reported missing to law enforcement — 4,645 — most of them runaways, said Deborah Fowler with Texas Appleseed.

As for unaccompanied homeless students — that is, students living without a parent or legal guardian — San Antonio Independent School District had the second-highest number in Texas, at 537, second only to Houston ISD, according to data from the 2014-2015 school year. Students are identified by staff who are trained to see the signs of homelessness, although many students try to hide it for fear of being returned to abusive homes or placed in state custody.

“There’s also a stigma to being homeless,” Fowler said, who added that homeless parents often identify their children to schools because they want them to receive services and support.

Lack of funding

The study analyzed data from a range of sources and included nearly 200 interviews with young people who had experienced homelessness, as well as service providers in schools, law enforcement officials, foster care representatives and others.

Overall, more than 16,000 youths in 1,200 Texas public school districts were identified as unaccompanied homeless, the most recent data shows. Combined with accompanied youth, the number of homeless youth grows to more than 113,000 in the public schools in 2014-15, a 12 percent increase over the previous school year. The increase may arise from better reporting, the study found.

In a way, this was a “bright spot” in the study, Fowler said.

“This shows many runaways are still in school, which means Texas has a real opportunity to better intervene and provide services, not only with kids who are already homeless but in how to prevent youth homelessness in the first place,” she said.

A big problem in tackling youth homelessness is a lack of funding, Fowler said. Nationally, most funds dedicated to homeless services come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has largely focused on veterans and other specific populations, not youth, she said. In Texas, almost all funding for homeless programs comes from this federal stream, with limited amounts going to homeless youth.

“One of the most startling things we found was that no state funding focuses specifically on serving homeless youth,” she said.

Recently, a handful of federal pilot programs were launched in cities nationwide, including Austin, each of which use designated funds to help homeless youth. Fowler is hopeful positive results from the pilots will prompt state lawmakers to loosen the purse strings and make fighting youth homelessness more of a priority.

“Nonprofit service providers are really struggling to piece together funding from different sources,” Fowler said. “That’s obviously a place where Texas can make a difference.”

They ‘deal with a lot’

The Texas Network of Youth Service, made up of organizations that provide services to Texas homeless and foster care youth, and a co-sponsor of the study, could benefit financially from such a shift in funding priorities, it should be noted. Texas Appleseed, in addition to conducting data-driven research, also files class-action lawsuits on behalf of what it sees as social justice reforms.

Federal law mandates school districts to employ “homeless liaisons” — staff dedicated to helping homeless students, “but they’re often wearing 30 different hats and not able to focus on the tasks they’re mandated to do, such as provide youth with counseling, housing and other supports,” Fowler said.

Bill Wilkinson, CEO of Roy Maas Youth Alternatives in San Antonio, which provides family counseling, emergency shelter and transitional living programs to homeless youth 22 and under, said the youth his nonprofit serves “deal with a lot of issues.”

“Around 40 percent of the kids we serve are LGBTQ,” he said. “You’re got kids running away from abusive homes, kids who’ve often seen all kinds of trauma. We don’t have a system in place to handle these kids, whose brains are still developing.”

Breaking the cycle

Youth who turn 18 and are still in foster care, not having been adopted, “have nowhere to go” at that point in their lives and often end up on the streets, vulnerable to victimization, Wilkinson said. (Youths age out of state care at 18, although they can opt to stay in until age 21.) Bexar County had the secondhighest number of youths who aged out of foster care in 2016 — 136 — behind only Houston, at 163.

Roy Maas does receive a federal grant for the transitional housing program, but it’s $200,000 a year, which pays for only half the costs. Wilkinson must raise the rest through private fundraising, he said.

Often, Fowler said, homeless youth are detained by law enforcement for “survival behavior” — vagrancy, curfew violation, panhandling, prostitution — which pulls them into the juvenile and criminal justice system, from which they emerge more damaged than when they went in.

“We need to break this cycle, both in terms of improving public safety and for better outcomes for these kids,” she said.