![Two boys hold hands at a drop-in shelter for LGBT youth in Detroit. There are roughly 4,600 homeless youth in New York City.](https://media.wnyc.org/i/800/0/l/85/2019/05/AP_120302037482.jpg)
Roughly 4,600 young people in New York City below the age of 25 are spending their nights on the streets or in a homeless shelter. Despite that substantial population, a first-of-its-kind study has determined the city's services are "fragmented" and suffer from a "lack of ownership and accountability," according to a city-commissioned study.
The system-wide assessment, conducted by Chapin Hall, a child welfare research center at the University of Chicago, originated from a task force on youth homelessness that Mayor Bill de Blasio created in June 2018. Based on roughly 100 interviews with youth and adults, as well as data from several city agencies, the report paints an urgent picture of young people who require much more comprehensive services than the city has been providing.
"The concept of a system is probably best described as an aspiration of the city rather than a current reality," principal investigator Matthew Morton told WNYC's Jami Floyd.
The study found that New York's safety net for youth, which involves the city departments for homelessness and child welfare as well as nonprofit providers, can feel particularly difficult to navigate for young people who have experienced hardship. Young people who participated in the study said that finding help can entail continuously recounting traumatic experiences as they seek services from different providers.
"I don't want to be in a space where I'm always feeling like a victim," said Jha'asryel-Akquil Bishop, one of the co-authors of the study who once experienced homelessness in New York City. "Or always feel like I have to talk about these bad things that happened to me so that I can get the resources and services that I need."
The population of young people experiencing homelessness in New York City are almost entirely people of color; roughly half identified as LGBTQ. Some 20 percent engaged in the study were pregnant or parenting, and more than 50 percent had been involved in foster care, juvenile detention, prison, or jail.
In its written response to the report, the de Blasio administration said it has sought to strengthen its crisis response system for homeless youth, in part by creating 24-hour drop-in centers in each borough. But the city acknowledged it needs to improve prevention efforts and long-term housing options after young people leave shelters.
"The city has an increasingly robust crisis response, but that can't be the whole of a homelessness prevention system any more than an emergency room can be the whole of a healthcare system," said Morton. "We really need in this city a more robust system for preventing young people from ever experiencing the crisis of homelessness in the first place."