HOMELESS

A mix of anecdotes, news excerpts, statistics, and descriptions of social programs comprises this investigation into homelessness.

Sections of this brief overview cover such topics as “Homelessness Among the LGBTQ Community,” “Hunger, Abuse, and Mental Illness,” and “Homeless and in College.” Stock photos of attractive, ethnically diverse teens suffering attractively keep the material visually interesting. A few examples present the ubiquity of homelessness among even the somewhat famous: a former presidential candidate’s husband, an American Idol contestant, a running back for the Oakland Raiders. The seriousness of the dangers is often weirdly elided. “The Failures of Foster Care” mentions foster parents who are “stern and demanding” and only vaguely hints at possible traumas encountered in that setting. Teens who come out, readers learn, may become homeless if “their news is met with disapproval,” a passive way of framing the rejection of young queer people by their families. Only human traffickers are presented as particularly scary. Given this relatively danger-free recitation of risks, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the work concludes that fixing homelessness will, in addition to support from the government and community organizations, “take a change in attitude by many people who are homeless” who “need to stop thinking of their situations as hopeless and to adopt the attitudes of” formerly homeless individuals who have achieved success, a message that reads like victim blaming.

Unhoused kids deserve a better exploration of their challenges and successes.