About 50,000 youth in the U.S. sleep on the street for six months or more. Homeless youth face unique developmental challenges and vulnerability. The Bradley-Reid Corporation and you together can fills the void of assistance these children, 50,000 is only a number to ONE Heart that cares.
For the first time in 2013, the Department of Housing and Urban Development called for communities to conduct a youth-inclusive count that would include unaccompanied homeless youth, up to 24-years-old. That year in January, 46,924 unaccompanied homeless children and youth were counted. Given the difficulty of counting homeless youth, that estimate is likely an undercount. As you and I know this count is low, for if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. Not only is our government is divided on everything but families are divided, which causes this homelessness to flow down to our youth, your tomorrow for not just USA but the world.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that during a year there are approximately 550,000 unaccompanied, single youth and young adults up to age 24 who experience a homelessness episode of longer than one week. Approximately 380,000 of those youth are under the age of 18. While these are rough estimate made using imperfect information, it is a good starting point from which communities and the federal government can begin to scale resources and interventions. The Bradley Reid Corp is charged with joining in on meeting the needs for (little) people unsupported in North and South Carolina. Our starting point is here, with you. While there are evaluations of programs to assist homeless youth, there is very little research comparing interventions and none examining how different interventions address the issues of the different subpopulations. Nevertheless, communities have reasonable evidence to increase support to family intervention efforts and to target existing housing programs to youth with the highest needs.
Ultimately, better, more accurate data must be collected on the number of youth that experience homelessness as well as the effective interventions to end homelessness for youth. Currently, only approximately 50,000 youth per year are served by targeted homeless youth programs. Clearly this falls far short of demand and more resources are needed to respond adequately to youth homelessness and communities should include youth in their long-term strategic planning efforts to end homelessness for all populations.
The Bradley Reid Corporation Crisis Intervention Services(CIS) is develop to work within the communities to pull our efforts together with you to:
"Homeless children live in unstable conditions that include shelters, pay-by-the-week motels, doubled-up or tripled-up with others and in cars."
" Homeless children are: hungry twice as often as other children; sick four times more often; two to three grade levels behind and twice as likely to repeat a grade."
"Homeless children experience emotional and behavioral problems three times more than their housed peers. "
"The national graduation rate for homeless children is below 25%."