Homeless young people ‘strategizing’ a route to housing stability: service fatigue, exiting attempts and living ‘off grid’

Abstract

While access to housing has been identified as a crucial enabler to young people exiting homelessness, relatively little is known about the experiences of youth who encounter barriers in their attempts to secure housing. Mobilizing a pathways approach, this paper examines homeless young people’s experiences of seeking housing in a context of housing market forces that blocked their efforts to carve a route out of homelessness. The research, which is biographical and longitudinal, was conducted in Ireland between 2013 and 2016 and involved the collection of data at two points in time. At baseline, 40 young people aged 16–24 years and 10 of their family members were recruited (Phase 1) and, at the point of follow-up two years later (Phase 2), 74% of participants were retained in the study. By Phase 2, just 24% of the study’s young people were housed, pointing to significant barriers of access to housing. Moving beyond the identification of the impact of housing market forces on young people’s ability to exit homelessness, the analysis examines young people’s responses, focussing on the strategies used by them as they attempted to reclaim autonomy and control over their housing futures. Implications for the development of sustainable housing solutions that specifically cater to the needs of homeless youth are discussed.

Keywords:

• Youth homelessness
• pathways approach
• hidden homelessness
• housing solutions
• Housing First for Youth
• qualitative longitudinal research

Notes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the study’s participating young people and their family members, without whom this research would not have been possible. We want to also thank Andrew Murphy, Research Assistant to Phase 1 of the study, who made numerous contributions to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

Phase 1 of the research was funded by Focus Ireland and Phase 2 was funded by Focus Ireland in collaboration with Simon Communities of Ireland, Threshold, Peter McVerry Trust and the Society of St Vincent de Paul.

Notes on contributors

Paula Mayock, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses primarily on marginalised youth and adult populations, covering areas such as homelessness, drug use and mental health. Paula is the founder and Co-director of the Women's Homelessness in Europe Network (WHEN http://www.womenshomelessness.org), which seeks to develop, promote and disseminate multi-disciplinary academic and policy relevant research that enhances understanding of women's homelessness. Paula is the author of numerous articles, book chapters and commissioned research reports and is an Assistant Editor to the international journal Addiction.

Sarah Parker is a Government of Ireland Scholar and PhD Researcher in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. Previously, she worked as a research assistant on projects investigating youth and women's homelessness. Her PhD research examines families' trajectories through and out of homelessness using a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach. Her most recent (co-authored) research paper is a thematic analysis of the ways in which ‘family’ is constructed and (re)negotiated in the lives of homeless young people (Journal of Family Issues, March 2019).

Notes

1 The Homeless Preventative Strategy (Department of the Environment and Local Government, 2002) did identify a number of ‘at risk’ groups, including adult and young offenders, people leaving mental health residential facilities and young people leaving care. Therefore, unlike the Homeless Policy Statement, this strategy did recognise several specific circumstances and challenges that pertain specifically to youth who experience homelessness.

2 Ethical approval for the conduct of this study was granted by the Research Ethics Committee, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin for both phases of the research.

3 The types of services used as recruitment sites included: emergency, stort-term and supported temporary accommodation (STA) services; crisis interviention services; drop-in/day centres; education training and employment services; and aftercare services. Since the problem of youth homelessness is concentrated heavily in the Dublin region, far fewer young people were recruited in Cork, the county which records the second largest number of youth who access homelessness services.

4 This paper is based on the analysis of data from the baseline and follow-up interviews conducted with the study’s young people only.

5 Housing First services for youth have been established in Ireland in the cities of Limerick, Cork and Waterford and primarily target young people with histories of State care. The Limerick projects, which opened in May 2013, cater for young people aged 16–25 years while the Cork project accommodates 18–26 year olds. A scatter-site accommodation model is used in Cork and Limerick while the Waterford service (a residential aftercare service that was reconfigured as a Youth Housing First project) is a congregate site. In France, the Logis Jeunes project, initiated in 2010, provides housing to 18–25 year olds alongside a personalised support plan. There are also congregate housing models such as Foyers de Jeunes (Youth Homes) and the Résidences Habitat Jeunes (Youth Residences) (FEANTSA, 2018).

6 See: http://www.rocktrust.org/housing-first-for-youth

7 See: http://www.nal.fi/?lang=en