The longer a young person remains homeless the
more difficult it becomes for them to exit out of homelessness, the
first ever Irish longitudinal study on the topic has found.
The study, entitled Young People’s Homeless and Housing Pathways, first interviewed 40 young people in 2004 and 2005, and followed their progress for the next six years.
“One
of the clearest messages from the research is the importance of speedy
exits from homelessness. Those young people who ‘get out’ early were
likely to ‘stay out’, even if a number did return to homelessness for a
period,” the report’s authors, Paula Mayock of Trinity College and Mary-Louise Corr of Edinburgh Napier University, found.
They first interviewed 40 young people when
they were aged between 14 and 22. The researchers re-established contact
with 37 of these young people for a second time between 12 and 18
months later, conducting interviews with 30 of them. Of that cohort, 17
had exited homelessness while 13 remained homeless.
Three
to four years later they again made contact with 32 of the original 40
and conducted interviews with 28 of them.
Of that cohort 13 remained
homeless, 12 of who were male.
Speaking at the
launch of the report, Ms Maycock said that of the 13 who remained
homeless 12 had spent some time in prison and five were in prison at the
time the third phase was carried out in 2009 and 2010.
She
said the “process of remaining homeless... can be characterised as an
institutional circuit where they are constantly moving back and forth
between hostels and places of detention”.
Ms
Mayock said all of the young people who remained homeless at the end of
the study had reported heavy or dependent drug use, which she described
as the “double jeopardy of homelessness and drug use”.
The
study recommended continued investment in the prevention of
homelessness and the return to homelessness; noted the transition to
adult homeless services was a crisis point for young people; and
highlighted the importance of support services following the transition
to independent living.
The study was one of two reports published by the Department of Children today.
The second report by the Centre for Effective Services
which reviewed the department’s Youth Homelessness Strategy found it
had made a significant contribution to addressing youth homelessness. It
also found the number of children and young people seeking services had
diminished.
However, it said stakeholders had
called for more of an integrated multi-agency approach to meeting the
needs of vulnerable or at-risk children, and a change of the terminology
from “homeless” to “out-of-home” to more accurately describe and
address young people’s situations.
The report, by
Sean Denyer, Aisling Sheehan and Avery Bowser, emphasised that the use
of garda stations for children accessing emergency accommodation for the
first time should be stopped and that emergency residential
accommodation in Dublin should remain open to children throughout the
day.
Michele Clarke of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs
said that, when read together, the two reports gave the “depth that is
necessary to understand the complexities” of youth homelessness.
She
said that, since the department’s youth homelessness strategy was first
launched in 2001, the issue of “children sleeping rough has been
virtually eliminated”, but added that these studies showed challenges
remained.