2. Chronic Homelessness
• Definition - individuals that experience long-term or
repeated times of homelessness.
• The chronic homeless are often the public face of
the homelessness issue, however they make up only
16% of the entire homeless population
3. Causes
• According to estimates from the U.S. Departmnt of
Housing and Urban Development, a family with a
full-time worker making minimum wage could not
afford fair-market rent for a two bedroom
apartment anywhere in the U.S.
• The lack of affordable housing is one of the biggest
factors behind homelessness .
4. What about teens?
• There are approximately 1.7 million homeless teens
in the U.S.
• 39% of the homeless population is young people
under 18.
5. Why?
• A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
study found that 46% of homeless youth left their
home because of physical abuse.
o 17% left because of sexual abuse.
• Over 50% of young people in shelters and on the
streets report that their parents told them to leave
or knew they were leaving and didn’t care.
• The average age a teen becomes homeless is 14.7
years.
• Teens age 12 to 17 are more likely to become
homeless than adults.
6. What happens?
• 5,000 young people die every year because of
assault, illness, or suicide while on the street.
• HIV rates for homeless young people are 2 to 10
times higher than reported rates for other samples
of adolescents in the U.S.
