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Originally Broadcast March
10, 2004
NO WAY HOME
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EXPLORE THIS
ISSUE FURTHER:
THE HAZARDS OF HOMELESSNESS
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THE HAZARDS OF HOMELESSNESS
Living on the street is no picnic. While it’s
true that some youth seek the streets for adventure –
and are derisively labeled “weekend warriors”
or “twinkies” – and eventually return
home, most street youth are there simply because there’s
nowhere else to go. And on the street there is the constant
threat of violence, exploitation, drugs and illness.
In
one 2002 study:
45.7% of street youth reported being attacked in the
past year, as compared to 6.3% for their non-homeless
peers,
52.8% reported being threatened with an attack,
42% had been sexually assaulted or threatened with
sexual assault.
Police harassment: In provinces
like Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and BC, police harass
street youth relentlessly, ticketing and arresting
them for panhandling, squeegeeing or loitering.
In 1999, the Ontario government passed the Safe Streets
Act, which gave police the power to arrest youth for
simply approaching people for money or squeegeeing
their car windows. Youth complain about police harassment
as being one of the biggest hazards they face. One
study done by a Toronto legal clinic, Justice
for Children and Youth found that 11.5% of street
youth reported their worst victimization was at the
hands of the police.
Sickness and death:
Street youth are more likely to get sick and even
die on the streets.
RISK
OF DEATH:
A Quebec study found the mortality rate was
11 times higher for street youth -mostly caused
by suicide or drug overdose. |
A recent study that examined the mortality rate among
homeless youth was carried out in Montreal between 1995
and 2000, and looked at 1,013 young people between the
ages of 14 and 25. Originally the study was designed
to examine rates of HIV and Hepatitis infection among
youth. But the researchers began to realize that some
of their subjects were disappearing. They began checking
the coroner’s records and discovered an alarming
rate of deaths – mostly caused by suicide and
drug overdose.
By June, 2001, 26 of the 1,013 participants –
22 boys and 4 girls – had died, or a mortality
rate of .89% per 100 person years.
NOTE:
The total figure is really 29 but three were not included
in the above number because they had not been on the
street for two years or more.
The homeless youth mortality rate was 11 times higher
than the rate of the general population of Quebec.
The causes of deaths were: suicide (13), overdose (8),
accidental death (2), Hepatitis A (1), unidentified
cause (1), with one case pending.
Four of 31 HIV-infected youth died of suicide, Hepatitis
A, and one unknown.
The study concluded that “mortality is very high
among street youth. Those at highest risk of dying are
youth who are HIV-infected, youth who are daily drinkers,
those who are homeless and those who are injecting drugs.
While the role of HIV infection in the mortality of
street youth is still not clear, substance misuse and
suicidal thoughts and attempts, in the context of homelessness,
clearly play direct causal roles.”
Street youth pregnancies:
A study conducted in 1997-98 by the Hospital
for Sick Children and the Shout Clinic among 93 street-involved
females found that an alarming number of street children
have pregnancies. There was a total of 118 pregnancies
among the women. The study found that:
59% reported having been or currently were pregnant.
The average age of first pregnancy was 16.7 years.
At the time of the first pregnancy, 29% of youth were
living on streets, 27% in shelters, and 43% with friends
or family.
32% of all pregnancies were miscarried, 22% were
terminated electively, 34% delivered and 12% were still
pregnant.
Street youth women are more likely to get pregnant
than women who are not homeless at a rate two to three
times greater.
The younger someone became homeless and the longer
they stayed on the street the greater probability they
would become pregnant.
Miscarriages were two to four times higher among
street youth than the general population. This was attributed
to poor nutrition, increased rates of substance abuse
and sexually transmitted disease.
The study concluded that the reasons for higher rates
of pregnancy among street youth is connected to socio-economic
status and self-esteem: many feel it may bring a dramatic
change to a hopeless situation, giving them access to
more emotional and financial support, more sense of
empowerment by the responsibility of caring for a child,
a sense of family where they don’t otherwise have
one, and the hope they will be treated with more respect.
THE
NEXT GENERATION:
Street Youth are 2 to 3 times more likely to
get pregnant. Their babies are often born smaller
and malnourished. |
Health risks to the children:
Evergreen, a drop-in center for homeless youth
in Toronto, finds that homeless young women tend to
have smaller babies than the norm and a higher number
of preemies. Consequently, babies are stunted in their
physical development.
Because the bottles used for feeding are often not
cleaned properly, and the infants are regularly handed
around to other teenagers, the babies end up with
fungal infections in their mouth, which results in
diaper rash. Indeed, skin rashes, mouth and diaper
rashes and feeding problems are common.
Babies are often malnourished when they are born.
This is often because the placenta of the mothers
is unhealthy and the baby won’t have received
enough blood.
The babies see and experience a lot more violence
than the norm. The children are apprehended at a much
higher rate than average infants. The babies are more
likely to be physically punished, and suffer from
neglect.
What is the long term impact?
The biggest impact is with mental developmental
problems, with developing poor attention spans and
tending to walk and crawl a bit later than babies
from non-homeless population.
“The body is very forgiving but the brain, because
it develops within the first few years of life, because
these kids don’t have the right kind of interaction
or right kind of stimulation, or right kind of play
or because they witness as much violence as they do,
my grain of fear is for their brain development,”
says Ruth Ewart, a nurse at Evergreen. “So they
will be another group of kids who will struggle in
schools because of various brain and brain developmental
issues.”
NEXT PAGE: THE
CAUSES OF HOMELESSNESS
PRINTER COPY 
MAIN
- WHO ARE HOMELESS
YOUTH? - LIFE
ON THE STREET
THE HAZARDS OF HOMELESSNESS - THE
CAUSES OF HOMELESSNESS
THE COST OF HOMELESSNESS
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