Larkin Street Youth Services is a pioneering nonprofit organization that was established in 1981 to serve the growing urban homeless and runaway youth population. What began as a neighborhood effort has evolved into a $12 million organization over the course of its 25-year history. Larkin Street Youth Services delivers a continuum of services to homeless youth including counseling, housing, edu...

There are over 1 million homeless youth in the U.S. each year. To reduce homelessness, U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and housing communities provide housing programs/services to homeless youth with the goal of improving their long-term situation. Housing communities are facing a difficult task of filling their housing programs, with as many youths as possible, subject to resource con...

OBJECTIVE To explain the low nutrient intakes of homeless youth in Toronto by looking at their usual food intake patterns and the food they obtained from charitable programs and their own purchases. METHODS Interviews were conducted with 261 homeless youth (149 male, 112 female), recruited from outdoor locations and drop-in centres in downtown Toronto. Drawing on data from two 24-hour dietary...

Research suggests that runaway and homeless youth (RHY) in the United States are vulnerable to sex labor trafficking. In this paper, we report analyze estimates of trafficking collected as part Atlanta Youth Count 2018, a community-based field survey RHY between ages 14 25 metro-Atlanta area. A total 564 participants were recruited completed included questions about their backgrounds well Human...

This paper presents HEALER, a software agent that recommends sequential intervention plans for use by homeless shelters, who organize these interventions to raise awareness about HIV among homeless youth. HEALER’s sequential plans (built using knowledge of social networks of homeless youth) choose intervention participants strategically to maximize influence spread, while reasoning about uncert...

This paper presents HEALER, a software agent that recommends sequential intervention plans for use by homeless shelters, who organize these interventions to raise awareness about HIV among homeless youth. HEALER’s sequential plans (built using knowledge of social networks of homeless youth) choose intervention participants strategically to maximize influence spread, while reasoning about uncert...

Background: Alcohol use and drug injection are prevalent among homeless youths. The aim of this study wasto identify the associated factors of alcohol consumption and drug injection among homeless youths aged18-29 years.Methods: Data on 202 homeless youths (111 males and 91 females) were collected using a st...

In Canada, approximately 150,000 youth are homeless on any given night, and many have companion animals. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study explored the issues and effects of companion animal ownership among street-involved youth from the perspective of the youth themselves. “Pet before self” was the substantive theme, with first level sub-themes of “physical...

In response to growing concerns about the rising number of runaway and homeless youth (RHY) in the U.S., researchers have sought to improve the scientific understanding of health and mental health needs, as well as the social resources available to these youths. In this paper, we examine the relationship between personal support network resources and the mental health status of a sample of RHY ...

PURPOSE To describe the service utilization patterns of homeless and runaway youth in a "service-rich" area (Los Angeles, California); identify demographic and other correlates of utilization; and contextualize the findings with qualitative data. METHOD During Phase 1 of this study, survey data were collected from an ethnically diverse sample of 296 youth aged 13-23 years, recruited from both...