Essay Sample on Youth Homelessness in Canada: Causes & Risk Factors

Introduction

Youth homelessness refers to individuals living in shelters that are below a healthy life or do not secure ownership of the houses. The youths get considered to have no place of living if they are living in the streets and going across temporary dwellings. The paper focuses on the issues that are contributing to youths' homelessness in Canada and the risk factors that compel the children to live in the streets. Previously individuals that experienced homelessness in Canada were single older adults; however, currently, the causes of homelessness in Canada are diverse with the rapid increase in youth homelessness (Marsolais,2013). It gets estimated that the youth in Canada occupy 18.7 percent of the homeless population, and the number is significantly increasing specifically to vulnerable people in Canada. The general youth homelessness in Canada has led to some professional to find and evaluate the factors that encouraging the homeless of young people.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Although the youth who are homeless share the different factors that cause them to be homeless, there are several factors that they share in common, leading to homelessness. Most of the young people in Canada run away from their homes to streets to search for a better life and run away from the neglect of the parents and their physical abuse (Gaetz,2014). Some of the young people freed from their homes to avoid family quarrels due to parental drug abuse. In Canada recently, it has been found that stable houses increase the possibility of leaving social justice, and seeking employment promote quality of children life and decreasing mortality increasing homelessness among the youths in Canada. The Canadian government has dismantled the provincial and national that has contributed to an increase in homelessness crises in Canada.

In Canada, other risk factors that have significantly facilitated the rise in homelessness among the youth include. Poverty, the rapid increase in population in Canada, have impoverished some people as there is a scramble for the available opportunities. Many teenagers find themselves in a situation where they are frequently unable to afford the necessity such as housing, food, health care among other obligations that confine youth homelessness as they can't provide the needs in their life. Personal circumstances and relational challenges also contribute to an increase in homelessness. It applies to the particular circumstances of an individual experiencing homelessness and may involve traumatic events, mental health personal crises. It promotes homelessness in Canada as it contributed to conflicts in the families that compels the youth to run away from their families (Hofer,2004). The relationship between the families in Canada has contributed to an increase in homelessness among teenagers. The parents that always keeps on conflicting creates trauma among their children, and their children get tempted to run away from their parent to live in the streets.

In Canada, there is an enormous gap in terms of living among the homeless youth and those that live well in their homes. Those that have homes can receive vital services from their parents, which aids in being self-reliant in the future when they grow up. On the other hand, thee young people at the age of thirteen to twenty-four years that live independently without their caregivers, and parents usually lack the social support that is crucial for childhood to adult person transition. In such situations, they do not have a stable source of income and residence, and they thus cannot access adequate support network that is important to provide an effective transition of the responsibility to adulthood (Van Wormer,2003). The youth homelessness is different from homeless adults in terms of what causes homelessness and their consequences. The youth in the streets leave home places defined by relationships in which they were dependent on their parents, relatives, or caregivers.

In Canada youth homelessness, there are typically more young male people who are homeless than the number of females. For instance, a survey gets conducted that revealed that sixty-three percent of the young people shelters belonged to men, while thirty-seven percent have belonged to females. Therefore, the research indicated that women get exposed to a considerable risk of violence and crime and violence, including sexual and assault. In determining the youth homelessness of an individual, there are significant factors that need to be considered that is the young age, experience on independent living; therefore, any condition of homelessness has to address the causes and situation of the homelessness (Caputo,2007). The young individuals below the age of eighteen years they are usually dependent on their parents in almost everything; thus, if they are left the depend on themselves, they might lose hope in the future as there they cannot depend on their own. The significant frame used in the differentiation of the adult and the youth homelessness includes - physical mental, emotional, and social development. The young people experiencing homelessness usually lack the skills and experience necessary for them to be independent on their own.

The young people who are homeless are usually get exposed to a different number of risks in life. For example, dependency, they cannot make the proper decision for survival as they depend on the guidance from the grown-up person who can give them advice on what to do. They also face the problem of victimization on several issues internalizing and real-life issues. Another cause of homeless among the youth is trauma. It causes distressful among the people and severely affects their behavior, especially the young individual. It helps to explore the involved person psychological relational challenges experience by the many individuals that are in the problem of homelessness.

The movement of the youths to the urban streets increase in cases of youth homelessness in Canada. It gets solved by the provision of emergency services such as shelters for those who cannot afford to build their own and the clinic to offer medical services to those patients that cannot access where the clinics are located and even pay for the services. The process of eliminating homelessness in Canada gets set in such a way that systems got put in place that aided identifying the young people who are at risk due to joblessness. These systems also gave them the support they need - adopting policies that promote children's protection and mental health treatment. The Canadian government is also fostering a healthy transition to adulthood in preventing the life of the street and ensuring the unity of the families by responding to their needs. The government is achieving this through school-based intervention. The students are taught in schools on the importance of unity in the families and avoiding the streets life. Offering employment training and education, through providing employment, the government makes many individuals self-reliant, and this helps to reduce the cases of joblessness and to train the youth on the importance of avoiding live in the streets.

References

Gaetz, S). (2014). Coming of age: Reimagining the response to youth homelessness in Canada. Canadian Homelessness Research Network.

Gaetz, S., O'Grady, B., Buccieri, K., Karabanow, J., & Marsolais, A. (2013). Youth homelessness in Canada: Implications for policy and practice

Kelly, K., & Caputo, T. (2007). Health and street/homeless youth. Journal of health psychology, 12(5), 726-736.

Miller, P., Donahue, P., Este, D., & Hofer, M. (2004). Experiences of being homeless or at risk of being homeless among Canadian youths. Adolescence, 39(156).

Van Wormer, R. (2003, April). Homeless youth seeking assistance: A research-based study from Duluth, Minnesota. In the Child and Youth Care Forum (Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 89-103). Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers.