Seattle Press on Line - Looking for Home: University District street kids hope for a better life

Looking for Home: University District street kids hope for a better life

Dec 06, 2001 -- If you want a brutal reminder that homelessness can strike anyone at any time, walk around Seattle's University District sometime and look at the panhandlers.

Many of them are young--teenagers, in some cases. These homeless youths arrived on the street via many different circumstances, although common themes run throughout each person's story: abusive families, foster care that went wrong or varying degrees of drug or alcohol abuse. They all share one trait, however: they prefer sleeping in a shelter or a doorway to living at home.

"More than 50 percent do not have a safe place to go," says John-Paul Sharp, a social worker with Service Links for Youth (SLY), a nonprofit organization that does outreach for homeless youth. Sharp adds that most of the young people he has worked with in the past 18 months have either mental health or drug abuse problems.

Seattle's University District has a wide range of services available to homeless youth--more than any other neighborhood. Unfortunately, the high number of programs are merely indicative of the area's large population of homeless youth. The organizations offer beds, food and access to education, medical services and job training.

Teen Feed started in 1989 and feeds dinner to about 35 teens and young adults per night. In addition to getting a hot meal five nights a week, Teen Feed clients can also meet with a social worker who tries to help them get off the street.

The problem lies deeper than simply providing a safe bed and warm meal, though. No one solution will end the problem of youth homelessness. Looking at the factors that lead to young people living on the street--bad foster care, alcohol and drug abuse in the home, and many other factors--it's impossible to visualize a magic wand that will make it all go away.

"The circumstances are as complicated as we are as human beings," said Reverend Monica Corsaro, an outreach minister at University Temple United Methodist Church. The church participates in University Youth Shelter, which provides beds for homeless youth five nights a week.

A 20-year-old named Dave uses Teen Feed regularly, as well as most of the other area services.

"It's real helpful," he says. "I don't know where I'd be without it."

Dave moved to Seattle from St. Louis earlier this year, and planned to stay with a friend, who ended up returning to St. Louis. Dave and his girlfriend were left with the friend's car, which they recently lost when it was towed. They have been living on the street for six months.

"My mobile home was taken away," he says, joking.

Joshua, an 18-year-old from Orlando, was 16 when his mother kicked him out of the house. He traveled around the country, living in Chicago and New York before he came to Seattle. Joshua edits a punk-rock zine through the University District Youth Center. Homelessness, he says, has not been completely bad for him.

"I think, being homeless, you learn a lot," says Joshua. "I respect bad things that happen to me."

This doesn't mean Joshua wants to be homeless. With the help of Sharp, his caseworker, Joshua is looking for transitional housing. He eventually wants to join a band.

However, very few young people get into transitional housing, since people with drug abuse or mental health issues are not allowed. Usually they cannot if they have drug abuse problems or mental health issues. Amanda, a 19-year old who writes for Real Change Magazine's "Mockingbird Times," has been turned down by the YMCA's transitional housing program for mental health reasons--what those are she doesn't say, and it's not apparent from talking to her.

She has confidence that she'll find a place to live, though.

"I'm a very resourceful kid," she says.

Amanda plans to go become a licensed masseuse. After that, she wants to use her massage training to pay for veterinary school. In the meantime, she stays at the shelters five nights a week. The other two nights Amanda usually sleeps at bus stops.

"The public is highly unaware of all the obstacles in acquiring stability for homeless youth," says Sharp. Each young person he has encountered in his work has a different set of problems, and therefore different needs. For most of his clients, Sharp says, there are many levels of success.

"If a kid who's been using crystal meth for a year begins to talk about treatment, that's a success right there," he says.

"I think we are making a difference if we can get them to trust adults again," says Corsaro.

To do all of that, and to address the factors that lead to young people living on the street, requires more than just additional shelter beds. Corsaro says the government needs to step in to help solve the problem.

Whatever it will take, many young people want to find housing.

"I don't want to live on the streets anymore," says a 19-year-old Real Change vendor named Azheri. "I've been on the streets five and a half years. That's five and a half years too long."

Reader Comments

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jennifer hottle	Dec 06, 2003	Thomasville	looking for a foster home
i want a family to depend on


Little Bear	Mar 09, 2004	Sioux Fall, S.D.
I think if anyone is going to do an article about the Seattle street scene then they should go up to Broadway where the real street kids are. There are no programs really left up there so the kids don't have a hand out. What they it and where they sleep are earned. The kids on the Ave are there 'cause they have to have someone take care of them. I lived on the streets of Broadway since 95 until I got locked up in 98. I just spent six years locked up, yet I still keep in contact with most of the kids on Broadway. Real street kids survive. It is easy to go to a shelter, but it takes real strenght to provide for yourself and still make it and that is what the Broadway kids do.


kristie klemmeck	May 03, 2004	seattle	student
hey most of my friends live in shelters they are really cool people. i hang out with some and they mostly have drug problems but other then that they are nice at some point unless then want to kill themselves. or they get into trouble with the cops or they get in to fights