April 14, 2016 - Atlanta's Homeless Youth by The Signal
Eric Wright is finding out there’s a lot more to making Atlanta’s invisible population visible.
During a Georgia State study from the summer of 2015, Wright, a sociology professor, assembled a team of students and staff to tally the burgeoning number of homeless youth in the city.
But after over eight months of analyzing the results from the initial count, Wright told The Signal they needed to dig into other contributing factors that were previously overlooked.
“We wanted to be sure that our coding of the data accurately reflected the experiences of these youth who do not have a public voice,” he said. “[Homeless youth] are extremely vulnerable, and because of their personal challenges, their survey answers were not easily summarized.”
The Atlanta Youth Count is the codename for Georgia State’s summer 2015 four-week study in which more than 80 Georgia State students and volunteers combed Atlanta, surveying the “precariously housed,” a federally used term for homeless youth aged 14 to 25, according to Wright.
The volunteers asked the people they encountered to complete a brief survey about their current and past experiences with homelessness, as well as factors that led to their homelessness and health status. Wright said the youth “defied traditional social categories.”
“The youth we surveyed were very diverse in terms of race, gender and sexuality, so we had to understand and categorize that with people who had more traditional understanding,” he said.
Wright wouldn’t reveal the final count to The Signal but he said the results were “larger than most people estimate.” Wright also said the data took longer than expected because his team made sure the results were clean and matched up to the computer data. They also conducted their surveys at night in dangerous Atlanta neighborhoods, such as “The Bluff” near Vine City.
Wright and his volunteers visited several youth hangouts more than once, covering a larger group of homeless youth than any in the southeast. He also said many of them are mobile, couchsurf, some are sex workers and spend nights at their johns’ homes, and travel in small packs, occasionally collect money for a night in a hotel, or staying in bars until closing.
“When we learned the police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) had started heavily enforcing The Bluff, making the young people move out temporarily, they were easier to find because they moved a lot and they didn’t sleep outside much,” he said.
Wright said he and his volunteers dressed down and worked with Atlanta Police Department (APD) and experienced outreach workers in order to blend into high crime areas like The Bluff and ensure everyone’s safety. He also said young Georgia State students helped make the homeless youth feel more comfortable in answering questions.
“The interviewers all dressed casually in jeans and t-shirts and comfortable shoes,” Wright said. “They were trained not to dress in a flashy way. We emphasized blending into the social terrain.”
The Point in Time (PIT) count is an overnight tally of homeless Americans, and Atlanta tallied up almost 14,000, and over 1,800, or 13 percent are homeless youth aged 18-24, according to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA).In January, homeless people are indoors and presumably easier to find, according to Wright.
Georgia State Dean of Students Darryl Holloman said there are no official records tracking homeless students aside from a student’s self-reporting. He also told The Signal in an email Georgia State and Embark Georgia created a safe space to house about 35 homeless students this year, exceeding that total by four more students.
Student Government Association (SGA) President Pro-Tempore Justin Brightharp said he first learned of the homeless student count during a town hall meeting last fall, and has been working with Holloman on the issue since.
“As of now, we have a meeting with Faculty Affairs, the Dean of Students office and housing to discuss the next step,” he said.
Wright will explain the factors that he and his team of students and volunteers faced on May 3 at 10:30 am in a press conference while conducting the Atlanta Youth Count last summer. He hopes the information and the issues of homelessness, aside from public interest, will eventually be addressed. By noon on May 3, the Atlanta Youth Count will be made available online.
During a Georgia State study from the summer of 2015, Wright, a sociology professor, assembled a team of students and staff to tally the burgeoning number of homeless youth in the city.
But after over eight months of analyzing the results from the initial count, Wright told The Signal they needed to dig into other contributing factors that were previously overlooked.
“We wanted to be sure that our coding of the data accurately reflected the experiences of these youth who do not have a public voice,” he said. “[Homeless youth] are extremely vulnerable, and because of their personal challenges, their survey answers were not easily summarized.”
The Atlanta Youth Count is the codename for Georgia State’s summer 2015 four-week study in which more than 80 Georgia State students and volunteers combed Atlanta, surveying the “precariously housed,” a federally used term for homeless youth aged 14 to 25, according to Wright.
The volunteers asked the people they encountered to complete a brief survey about their current and past experiences with homelessness, as well as factors that led to their homelessness and health status. Wright said the youth “defied traditional social categories.”
“The youth we surveyed were very diverse in terms of race, gender and sexuality, so we had to understand and categorize that with people who had more traditional understanding,” he said.
Wright wouldn’t reveal the final count to The Signal but he said the results were “larger than most people estimate.” Wright also said the data took longer than expected because his team made sure the results were clean and matched up to the computer data. They also conducted their surveys at night in dangerous Atlanta neighborhoods, such as “The Bluff” near Vine City.
Wright and his volunteers visited several youth hangouts more than once, covering a larger group of homeless youth than any in the southeast. He also said many of them are mobile, couchsurf, some are sex workers and spend nights at their johns’ homes, and travel in small packs, occasionally collect money for a night in a hotel, or staying in bars until closing.
“When we learned the police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) had started heavily enforcing The Bluff, making the young people move out temporarily, they were easier to find because they moved a lot and they didn’t sleep outside much,” he said.
Wright said he and his volunteers dressed down and worked with Atlanta Police Department (APD) and experienced outreach workers in order to blend into high crime areas like The Bluff and ensure everyone’s safety. He also said young Georgia State students helped make the homeless youth feel more comfortable in answering questions.
“The interviewers all dressed casually in jeans and t-shirts and comfortable shoes,” Wright said. “They were trained not to dress in a flashy way. We emphasized blending into the social terrain.”
The Point in Time (PIT) count is an overnight tally of homeless Americans, and Atlanta tallied up almost 14,000, and over 1,800, or 13 percent are homeless youth aged 18-24, according to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA).In January, homeless people are indoors and presumably easier to find, according to Wright.
Georgia State Dean of Students Darryl Holloman said there are no official records tracking homeless students aside from a student’s self-reporting. He also told The Signal in an email Georgia State and Embark Georgia created a safe space to house about 35 homeless students this year, exceeding that total by four more students.
Student Government Association (SGA) President Pro-Tempore Justin Brightharp said he first learned of the homeless student count during a town hall meeting last fall, and has been working with Holloman on the issue since.
“As of now, we have a meeting with Faculty Affairs, the Dean of Students office and housing to discuss the next step,” he said.
Wright will explain the factors that he and his team of students and volunteers faced on May 3 at 10:30 am in a press conference while conducting the Atlanta Youth Count last summer. He hopes the information and the issues of homelessness, aside from public interest, will eventually be addressed. By noon on May 3, the Atlanta Youth Count will be made available online.
August 19, 2015 - Atlanta Counts Homeless LGBT Youth One by One by ProjectQ Atlanta
Scores of LGBT youth are homeless on any given night in Atlanta. You may have known that. Now a study counting those kids is about to blow the scope of the problem to epidemic proportions.
The efforts of Lost N Found Youth, which helps homeless teens and young adults who are LGBT, are well documented. LNF volunteers participated in the new “Atlanta Youth Count!” study by Georgia State University, asking teens on the streets tough questions about their situations.
It took most of the summer for 100 volunteers to find out who the affected youth are, why they are homeless and how they are surviving. Youth Today paints a vivid portrait of the research process and the lives of homeless kids on the darker side of LGBT Atlanta.
Many are teens and young adults who have left or been kicked out of strife-ridden families, often because of their sexuality, or have been pushed onto the streets by poverty or drugs.
There are some obvious tells for homelessness — bags full of possessions, dirty clothes — and others that are more subtle. [Kaitlyn, with LNF] Commiskey looks for people charging mobile phones in public, often at outlets mounted at the base of street lights. Volunteers are trained not to ask someone directly if they’re homeless; they’re more likely to get a better result if they ask whether the person knows someone who needs help.
The federal government estimates that there are 45,000 homeless people aged 18-24 in the U.S. Any night in Atlanta, more than 700 teens and young adults are on the street, according to Lost N Found. But we may be in for a rude awakening when the full results of the Georgia State study come out.
The results of the Atlanta survey are scheduled to be released in November, following extensive analysis of the findings, said Atlanta Youth Count! co-director and Georgia State University sociology professor Eric Wright. But he could immediately say that the numbers “are much larger than we expected.”
But Wright leaves us with great hope.
“Even though they face all these major problems, it’s also very clear that the expectation of managing all these problems really presses them to develop skills that a person who isn’t faced with those adversities doesn’t,” he said.“There is not a youth who I’ve met or we’ve heard from that hasn’t developed a level of resilience that is truly impressive. I think if we can figure out a way to help them harness those skills, their life could be improved pretty rapidly, because some of them are just smart as a whip.”
We’ve seen the real difference that Lost N Found can make, and we’ve been warned about the "next LGBT epidemic” by its leaders. Whatever information the study ultimately provides to the cause, it will add to a picture becoming more clear with every journalistic journey to LGBT Atlanta’s mean streets.
[Youth Today]
The efforts of Lost N Found Youth, which helps homeless teens and young adults who are LGBT, are well documented. LNF volunteers participated in the new “Atlanta Youth Count!” study by Georgia State University, asking teens on the streets tough questions about their situations.
It took most of the summer for 100 volunteers to find out who the affected youth are, why they are homeless and how they are surviving. Youth Today paints a vivid portrait of the research process and the lives of homeless kids on the darker side of LGBT Atlanta.
Many are teens and young adults who have left or been kicked out of strife-ridden families, often because of their sexuality, or have been pushed onto the streets by poverty or drugs.
There are some obvious tells for homelessness — bags full of possessions, dirty clothes — and others that are more subtle. [Kaitlyn, with LNF] Commiskey looks for people charging mobile phones in public, often at outlets mounted at the base of street lights. Volunteers are trained not to ask someone directly if they’re homeless; they’re more likely to get a better result if they ask whether the person knows someone who needs help.
The federal government estimates that there are 45,000 homeless people aged 18-24 in the U.S. Any night in Atlanta, more than 700 teens and young adults are on the street, according to Lost N Found. But we may be in for a rude awakening when the full results of the Georgia State study come out.
The results of the Atlanta survey are scheduled to be released in November, following extensive analysis of the findings, said Atlanta Youth Count! co-director and Georgia State University sociology professor Eric Wright. But he could immediately say that the numbers “are much larger than we expected.”
But Wright leaves us with great hope.
“Even though they face all these major problems, it’s also very clear that the expectation of managing all these problems really presses them to develop skills that a person who isn’t faced with those adversities doesn’t,” he said.“There is not a youth who I’ve met or we’ve heard from that hasn’t developed a level of resilience that is truly impressive. I think if we can figure out a way to help them harness those skills, their life could be improved pretty rapidly, because some of them are just smart as a whip.”
We’ve seen the real difference that Lost N Found can make, and we’ve been warned about the "next LGBT epidemic” by its leaders. Whatever information the study ultimately provides to the cause, it will add to a picture becoming more clear with every journalistic journey to LGBT Atlanta’s mean streets.
[Youth Today]
July 20th, 2015 - Counting the Homeless Kids in Atlanta by YOUTHtoday
ATLANTA — In the famously leafy parks, beneath packed overpasses and in the shade of the skyscrapers that tower over the hub of the Southeast, an estimated 6,000-plus homeless people manage to make lives.
From early June through late July, Georgia State University sociology students and volunteers from Atlanta organizations canvassed the city in an effort they’re calling the first comprehensive assessment of youth homelessness in Atlanta. About 55 students joined more than 50 community volunteers for the Atlanta Youth Count! project, which aims to illustrate the scope of the problem and guide efforts to address it. Many are teens and young adults who have left or been kicked out of strife-ridden families, often because of their sexuality, or have been pushed onto the streets by poverty or drugs. The number of young people who are homeless — and the state of that homelessness — are questions a team of advocates and researchers at a downtown Atlanta college have spent a large part of the summer trying to answer.
Volunteers like Kaitlin Commiskey scouted metro Atlanta neighborhoods for people who are homeless. When they found any between the ages of 14 and 25, the students would ask them to answer a questionnaire.
Commiskey, who has been volunteering with the LGBT homeless outreach groupLost-N-Found Youth for about a year, said many of the young people she meets are new to town.
“We tell them about us and ask them where they’re staying,” she said. “If there’s a shelter closer to them, we’ll try to see if they’ve got beds open. If they need an ID, we tell them where they can go to get an ID or help finding a job. There are a lot of other places that do that, too.”
In a pavilion at Centennial Olympic Park, Georgia State sociology students Brandon Attell and Ebony Hinton find two young men who are willing to talk. One, who has been camping on the outskirts of downtown with friends, talks excitedly about how he just got a job on a cleaning crew at a big downtown hotel. The other, a quiet 21-year-old wearing a Japanese anime T-shirt, sticks to unspecified “family issues” when asked why he’s on the streets. Commiskey and John Francis, a volunteer with the nonprofit Stand Up For Kids, say they’ve been seeing him around for about six months.
There are some obvious tells for homelessness — bags full of possessions, dirty clothes — and others that are more subtle. Commiskey looks for people charging mobile phones in public, often at outlets mounted at the base of street lights. Volunteers are trained not to ask someone directly if they’re homeless; they’re more likely to get a better result if they ask whether the person knows someone who needs help.
“Sometimes you’ll say, ‘If you’re down around here a lot, you might know people, you might see other people who need it.’ So even if they don’t want to admit it to you, you can give them a card and then they know where to call and find out more information,” Commiskey said. “Or maybe it’s true — maybe they don’t need help, but they know someone who does.”
Francis said some of the older people on the streets will look out for the kids, steering volunteers like him to youngsters in need.
“They’ll flag us down and point one out, or tell us where to go look,” said Francis, a retired airline pilot. “A couple of them will say, ‘You need to get ahold of him before he turns out like me.’ They’re really kind of parenting them.”
The interviewers have a battery of 73 questions, some of them uncomfortably personal — recent sexual practices, drug use, feelings of despair. In one session, Hinton said, a young woman stomped off rather than finish.
“Once we got to the personal questions, she just got up and left,” Hinton said.
But Attell said the GSU students try to prepare the interviewees for the harder questions, and most answer frankly.
“People usually ignore them, so they don’t get a chance to engage and talk with people and have their voice heard very often,” Attell said. Some report being sexually abused, and others end up in the sex trade to survive.
“We’ve seen one young lady who is clearly out with her pimp,” Attell said. “We’ve seen her multiple times, kind of in the same area. That’s kind of a sad thing to see — what people have to do to make ends meet out here.”
Nationwide, nearly one-third of homeless people in the U.S. population are children, according to the 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress. About 45,000 young adults between 18 and 24 experience homelessness.
The results of the Atlanta survey are scheduled to be released in November, following extensive analysis of the findings, said Atlanta Youth Count! co-director and Georgia State University sociology professor Eric Wright. But he could immediately say that the numbers “are much larger than we expected.”
Many of the kids come to town expecting to find more services in “the thriving metropolis of the South,” he said. A large but still uncertain proportion identify as gay or lesbian, have been turned out of their families because of it and came to Atlanta “thinking they would find a welcoming community” in one of the most gay-friendly cities in the country, “and for various reasons, it didn’t live up to their expectations.”
But Wright said the young people interviewed in this survey are “amazingly resilient.”
“Even though they face all these major problems, it’s also very clear that the expectation of managing all these problems really presses them to develop skills that a person who isn’t faced with those adversities doesn’t,” he said.
“There is not a youth who I’ve met or we’ve heard from that hasn’t developed a level of resilience that is truly impressive,” he added. “I think if we can figure out a way to help them harness those skills, their life could be improved pretty rapidly, because some of them are just smart as a whip.”
From early June through late July, Georgia State University sociology students and volunteers from Atlanta organizations canvassed the city in an effort they’re calling the first comprehensive assessment of youth homelessness in Atlanta. About 55 students joined more than 50 community volunteers for the Atlanta Youth Count! project, which aims to illustrate the scope of the problem and guide efforts to address it. Many are teens and young adults who have left or been kicked out of strife-ridden families, often because of their sexuality, or have been pushed onto the streets by poverty or drugs. The number of young people who are homeless — and the state of that homelessness — are questions a team of advocates and researchers at a downtown Atlanta college have spent a large part of the summer trying to answer.
Volunteers like Kaitlin Commiskey scouted metro Atlanta neighborhoods for people who are homeless. When they found any between the ages of 14 and 25, the students would ask them to answer a questionnaire.
Commiskey, who has been volunteering with the LGBT homeless outreach groupLost-N-Found Youth for about a year, said many of the young people she meets are new to town.
“We tell them about us and ask them where they’re staying,” she said. “If there’s a shelter closer to them, we’ll try to see if they’ve got beds open. If they need an ID, we tell them where they can go to get an ID or help finding a job. There are a lot of other places that do that, too.”
In a pavilion at Centennial Olympic Park, Georgia State sociology students Brandon Attell and Ebony Hinton find two young men who are willing to talk. One, who has been camping on the outskirts of downtown with friends, talks excitedly about how he just got a job on a cleaning crew at a big downtown hotel. The other, a quiet 21-year-old wearing a Japanese anime T-shirt, sticks to unspecified “family issues” when asked why he’s on the streets. Commiskey and John Francis, a volunteer with the nonprofit Stand Up For Kids, say they’ve been seeing him around for about six months.
There are some obvious tells for homelessness — bags full of possessions, dirty clothes — and others that are more subtle. Commiskey looks for people charging mobile phones in public, often at outlets mounted at the base of street lights. Volunteers are trained not to ask someone directly if they’re homeless; they’re more likely to get a better result if they ask whether the person knows someone who needs help.
“Sometimes you’ll say, ‘If you’re down around here a lot, you might know people, you might see other people who need it.’ So even if they don’t want to admit it to you, you can give them a card and then they know where to call and find out more information,” Commiskey said. “Or maybe it’s true — maybe they don’t need help, but they know someone who does.”
Francis said some of the older people on the streets will look out for the kids, steering volunteers like him to youngsters in need.
“They’ll flag us down and point one out, or tell us where to go look,” said Francis, a retired airline pilot. “A couple of them will say, ‘You need to get ahold of him before he turns out like me.’ They’re really kind of parenting them.”
The interviewers have a battery of 73 questions, some of them uncomfortably personal — recent sexual practices, drug use, feelings of despair. In one session, Hinton said, a young woman stomped off rather than finish.
“Once we got to the personal questions, she just got up and left,” Hinton said.
But Attell said the GSU students try to prepare the interviewees for the harder questions, and most answer frankly.
“People usually ignore them, so they don’t get a chance to engage and talk with people and have their voice heard very often,” Attell said. Some report being sexually abused, and others end up in the sex trade to survive.
“We’ve seen one young lady who is clearly out with her pimp,” Attell said. “We’ve seen her multiple times, kind of in the same area. That’s kind of a sad thing to see — what people have to do to make ends meet out here.”
Nationwide, nearly one-third of homeless people in the U.S. population are children, according to the 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress. About 45,000 young adults between 18 and 24 experience homelessness.
The results of the Atlanta survey are scheduled to be released in November, following extensive analysis of the findings, said Atlanta Youth Count! co-director and Georgia State University sociology professor Eric Wright. But he could immediately say that the numbers “are much larger than we expected.”
Many of the kids come to town expecting to find more services in “the thriving metropolis of the South,” he said. A large but still uncertain proportion identify as gay or lesbian, have been turned out of their families because of it and came to Atlanta “thinking they would find a welcoming community” in one of the most gay-friendly cities in the country, “and for various reasons, it didn’t live up to their expectations.”
But Wright said the young people interviewed in this survey are “amazingly resilient.”
“Even though they face all these major problems, it’s also very clear that the expectation of managing all these problems really presses them to develop skills that a person who isn’t faced with those adversities doesn’t,” he said.
“There is not a youth who I’ve met or we’ve heard from that hasn’t developed a level of resilience that is truly impressive,” he added. “I think if we can figure out a way to help them harness those skills, their life could be improved pretty rapidly, because some of them are just smart as a whip.”
July 21st, 2015 - Atlanta Homeless Youth Count Just One Part Of GSU Initiative by 90.1 WABE Atlanta
Teams of Georgia State University students, researchers and volunteers are spending the summer on Atlanta's streets, trying to get a grasp on just how serious youth homelessness is here. And while the goal is to come up with an accurate number, researchers understand solving the problem will take more than just compiling raw statistics on homeless youth.
That means getting personal.
"Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation,” asks GSU graduate student Brittany Taylor of a man in his early 20s. Although a motel room on Fulton Industrial Boulevard provides a roof over his head, he still fits the technical definition of homelessness because he doesn't have a permanent home.
(GSU's surveys are anonymous, so the man doesn’t give his name.)
"Gay," he answers after first saying he's straight.
According to a 2012 UCLA Williams Institute study, 40 percent of those surveyed who are young and homeless identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The young man says his sexuality isn't a factor in his lack of permanent housing. Instead, he says, he just needed to see if he could survive on his own.
While sexual orientation and gender identity are common reasons youths find themselves without a home, there are many others. Georgia State volunteers conducting the survey say they often hear how the death of a parent, the need to escape an abusive situation, and drug and alcohol addiction force them to the streets.
For other youths, they say, low-wage jobs mean they can't afford stable housing.
Homeless youths who take the survey receive a $10 gift card, which is a relative windfall for many.
The count wraps up this week. GSU plans to publish its findings in late November.
That means getting personal.
"Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation,” asks GSU graduate student Brittany Taylor of a man in his early 20s. Although a motel room on Fulton Industrial Boulevard provides a roof over his head, he still fits the technical definition of homelessness because he doesn't have a permanent home.
(GSU's surveys are anonymous, so the man doesn’t give his name.)
"Gay," he answers after first saying he's straight.
According to a 2012 UCLA Williams Institute study, 40 percent of those surveyed who are young and homeless identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The young man says his sexuality isn't a factor in his lack of permanent housing. Instead, he says, he just needed to see if he could survive on his own.
While sexual orientation and gender identity are common reasons youths find themselves without a home, there are many others. Georgia State volunteers conducting the survey say they often hear how the death of a parent, the need to escape an abusive situation, and drug and alcohol addiction force them to the streets.
For other youths, they say, low-wage jobs mean they can't afford stable housing.
Homeless youths who take the survey receive a $10 gift card, which is a relative windfall for many.
The count wraps up this week. GSU plans to publish its findings in late November.