Making visible the prevalence of self-identified disability among youth experiencing homelessness

ABSTRACT

The study of youth homelessness has explored important intersections of homelessness with the child welfare, education, criminal justice, and mental health sectors. An invisible intersection in this research is the intersection of disability and homelessness, particularly intellectual, developmental, and learning disabilities for youth experiencing homelessness. The Partnering for Change research project has examined this intersection through an environmental scan of the multiple service sectors that interact with youth who have a disability and are homeless, through conversations with front-line workers and with youth and finally through the collection of quantitative data that confirms the over-representation of youth who identify as having a disability among homeless youth. This article reports on the prevalence of a range of disabilities among youth who are homeless in three sites in Southern Ontario. Not only is the prevalence of disabilities much higher than in the population at large, it is also the case that the average number of disabilities is much higher than in the youth population in Canada. Implications for needed changes in the service sector and for future research are outlined.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• disability
• homelessness
• intellectual disability
• developmental disability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The focus of this study was on intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities and although the questionnaire includes data on physical, sensory and mental health disabilities we did not include physical or sensory or MH disability-specific agencies in the study, although youth with ID/DD/LD may also identify and have been identified with these and other disabilities.

2 We recognize that a learning disability is sometimes considered to be a developmental disability. They are separated out here based on having separate categories for intellectual, developmental and learning disabilities on the questionnaire.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 890-2013-0086].

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Baker Collins

Stephanie Baker Collins (Ph.D.) is a Professor in the School of Social Work at McMaster University, teaching in the areas of social policy, evaluation, and research methods. Her research and practice experience focuses on the impact of public policy on the lives of marginalized groups, particularly systems that in place to address poverty and homelessness. Her current projects include how low-income households navigate multiple systems, and exploring the intersections of disability, education and employment for youth experiencing homelessness.

Ann Fudge Schormans

Ann Fudge Schormans (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at McMaster University. Drawing on critical disability studies and employing inclusive, co-researcher methodologies and knowledge co-production, and arts-informed methods, recent and current research projects with people with intellectual disabilities attend to their use of city space, parenting experiences and aspirations, intimate citizenship, masculinity, violence and abuse and neglect, and the intersection of intellectual disability and homelessness, as well as a project with disabled survivors of large-scale institutions developing post-secondary curriculum materials.