Yesterday’s blog post on victimization by Bill O’Grady inspired me to create the below infographic. Providing safe and affordable housing is an important step in reducing the victimization of young people experiencing homelessness.
It is important to continue to challenge the ‘common held’ beliefs on homelessness. Public policy decisions should be based on research rather than speculation or public perception. Unfortunately, as O’Grady points out, negative perceptions frequently play a larger role.
This also provides direct challenges to service providers inside the homelessness service sector and in other agencies that come into contact with youth experiencing homelessness. The following questions come to mind right away, and they are already being taken up by youth focused service agencies across the country:
How can we provide an environment where youth feel safe enough to open up about painful experiences that they’ve had to overcome?
How can we begin to address the traumatic events that inevitably occur while housing is unavailable?
Finally, these statistics on victimization provide an even greater urgency for the widespread implementation of youth-focused re-housing programs (such as Housing First). It is unacceptable that youth are publicly criminalized and privately victimized while they remain un-housed.
