If You Woke up Tomorrow: Answers to the ‘Miracle Question' Among Young People Experiencing Homelessness

Background: Homeless youth are often merely described by their precarious living situations and their problematic circumstances. Contrary to this deficit-based characterization, a strengths-based approach views homeless youth as resilient with dreams and aspirations paralleling their housed-counterparts. Despite overwhelming evidence suggesting the protective role of goal-setting and future aspirations among young people in general, scant attention has been paid to the strengths and resilience youth experiencing homelessness exemplify as they navigate life on the streets. The few studies focused on this issue have found that optimistic future expectations are usually associated with a range of positive psychosocial outcomes including reduced drug use (Neiva-Silva, 2003) and proactive coping skills (De Antoni & Koller, 2000). This study sought to explore how homeless youth conceptualize their future, to inform better policy and practice approaches to improve these youths’ well-being. 

Methods: Homeless youth (n=31) ages 18 to 24 were recruited in Denver, Colorado in 2016. To capture youths’ experiences across an array of service-settings, youth were recruited from one drop-in center (n = 10), one emergency-shelter (n = 11), and three transitional -housing facilities (n = 10). Semi-structured interviews asked youth about their goals for the future, perceived barriers to success, and their immediate needs. Transcripts were analyzed by a team of coders utilizing template analysis (King, 2004). First, analysis began by reading through segments of the data in relation to prescribed areas of inquiry. Second, a priori codes were developed to identify emerging themes. These emerging themes were then revised and merged again into broader groupings to reach agreement and validation of the data.

Results: When imagining their futures, young people experiencing homelessness appear to experience a tension, balancing their immediate needs for shelter, money, or food with their long-term ambitions for meaningful and fulfilling lives. In the short-term, they acknowledge tangible resources they need to survive and view service providers, friends and family as sources to aid them in accessing these resources. But, when asked about big goals for their futures, young people think well beyond these immediate needs to identify goals more far reaching than what is typically addressed in homeless service agencies. Young people describe wanting to build their skills through graduate school, to pursue careers they enjoy e.g., becoming a small business owner or a therapist), and they emphasize a mission for caring for others whether professionally or personally for their family.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that youths’ individual expectations often clash with significant structural constraints. Both governmental and community priorities will need to be retooled to provide youth with the resources needed to accomplish both their short-term and long-term goals; studies suggest that programs which meet these youths’ basic needs and then help them attain continuing stability have had the most success. Our analysis also revealed that contrary to conventional wisdom, these youth had a keen ability to think beyond their immediate needs and envision their future. Therefore, social workers should be encouraged to use these discussions as a motivational tool to move these youth closer to their goals.