Alcohol misuse, especially binge drinking, can lead to homelessness among young people through various social, physical, and health problems. Binge drinking is linked to issues like trouble with police, accidents, and medical conditions. These problems make it difficult to maintain housing and can even cause family issues leading to homelessness. Support is available through organizations like foyers that provide housing and rehabilitation services to help young people recover from substance abuse and gain independence.

1. Substance Misuse (Alcohol) As It
Affects Young People’s
Homelessness.

2. • In this presentation, i am going to define
alcohol misuse, its effects which shall be
linked to homelessness and as conclusion
support available to young people under this
situation.

3. • Alcohol misuse which lead to binge drinking has
been defined by the National Institute of Health
(NIH) as a form of alcohol abuse, alcohol
addiction, alcohol dependence or alcoholism. The
NIH described all of these as the continued use of
alcohol, irrespective of the development of social,
legal or health problems. But what is alcohol?
Again, NIH defined it as the intoxicating chemical
in drinks such as beer, wine and distilled liquor
with the formula C2H5OH.

4. • Problems with binge drinking:
• These are social, physical and health. Socially,
8% of young male and 7% of young female
drinkers get into trouble with the police after
being drunk and most young people who are
binge drunk damage objects, lose money, get
involved in a traffic accident or have
unprotected sex (Institute of Alcohol Studies).

5. • Physically, IAS reveals that many young people
have done physical harm to themselves
through accidents sustained while drink
driving.

6. • Health wise, IAS has revealed in their studies that
alcohol affects the whole of the brain in particular the
frontal lobes which are responsible for higher level
thinking such as planning, decision making and judging
the likely consequences of action. Therefore, they said
brain abnormalities are found in young people with
alcohol disorders and in those who have never
consumed alcohol but have a family history of abuse.
Rainstrick and Davidson(1985) stated that gastritis and
vitamin deficiency are more likely to occur among
drinkers of spirits. Abuse of alcohol can also cause
other medical problems including; liver disease,
hepatitis, cardiovascular disease etc.

7. • How will the above problems create
homelessness:
• Based on the Housing Pathway theory of Ford et
al (2002) where they studied young people
housing transition, The ‘chaotic pathway where it
has been associated with no planning, constraint
and absent of family support is more likely to be
associated with YP abusing alcohol (substance)
since they are often with the problems
mentioned above including; police
trouble, antisocial behaviour and sickness.

8. • The ‘unplanned pathways’ with no planning and substantial
constraint could as well be linked to alcohol abuse with the same
numerous social, physical and medical problems as mentioned
above. More over, binge drinkers among young people are likely not
to be in education, employment or training (NEET) and therefore
would not have money, to buy or even rent accommodation
therefore be homeless. Culturally, some parents especially ethnic
black Africans parents would see it as a disgrace to see their child
being alcoholic and therefore could expel their children away from
home making such a child to be homeless since such child would
not be able to afford a home for themselves.
• Marianne, B. M. (2009) suggested that a number of risk factors
including substance use and anti-social behaviour might not be
directly related to homelessness but rather share common causes
like poor family relation that could lead to homelessness.

9. • In conclusion, there are support available to such
young people and they include:
• Foyer; these are social charitable landlords who
offer accommodation to venerable young people
such as those abusing substance including
alcohol. On admitting them they are sent to
rehabilitation centre to help them recover from
alcohol and further send them to training or even
help them to find a job within the brief period
they house them.

10. • For example, The Foyer Scheme aims to help
single young vulnerable homeless people
obtain confidence and independence thereby
enabling them to achieve their full potential.
By providing opportunities in areas such as
training, employment and personal
development the foyer can assist in breaking
the no home-no-job-no home cycle’(2007)

11. References
• Ford, J., Rugg, J. And Burrows, R. (2002). Conceptualising the
contemporary role of housing in the transition to adult life in England.
Journal of Urban Studies, Vol.39, No.13 pp 2455-67.
• Marianne, B. M. Van den Bree, Katherine, S., Adrian, B., Sebastian, M.,
Hollie, T. And Pamela, J. T. (2009). A longitudinal population-based study of
factors in adolescence predicting homelessness in young adulthood.
Journal of Adolescent Health,Vol. 45. pp. 571-578.
• Institute of Alcohol Studies (undated) Fact Sheet – Adolescent and Alcohol.
[Internet] http://www.ias.org.uk?resources/factsheets.html-
[Accessed]22/11/08.
• National Institute of Health (undated). Understanding Alcohol – Glossary.
[Internet]
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/alcohol/other/glossar
y.htm [Accessed] 13/11/08.
• Rainstrick, D. And Davidson, R. (1985). Alcohol and Drug Addiction.
London: Churchill Livingstone.