Safety and Survival Strategies of Homeless, Street-Involved Young Adults

Background and Purpose -- Research indicates that homeless, street-involved young people reside in unstable and precarious environments. With limited finances and support, living in these conditions often lead to engaging in high-risk behaviors that may include criminal activity, association with other substance abusing street friends and victimization. While previous research has highlighted these deficiencies and pathology related to this population, few studies have highlighted the positive aspects and capabilities that homeless, street-involved young adults employ to survive on the streets. Survival skills and safety strategies utilized by young people may reflect their ability to cope with the numerous challenges of street living. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the various survival skills and safety strategies utilized by homeless, street-involved young adults to understand their coping and resiliency in the face of sustained adversity.

Methods -- This mixed-methods study recruited a convenience sample of 185 homeless young adults (18-23 years) using drop-in center and street outreach services. Self-report measures were conducted orally to control for literacy problems. Measures included various safety and survival strategies. For 87 of these participants, they also completed an audio-taped, semi-structured interview with open-ended questions that encouraged discussion regarding how survival skills and safety strategies were used while living on the streets. Following descriptive analysis of quantitative data, qualitative content analyses of interviews were conducted.

Results -- Participants averaged 21 years of age and were predominately male (67%) and Caucasian (68%). Most (61%) were living in a shelter, on the street, or squatting in abandoned houses, motels or cars. Less than half (46%) had graduated high school and most had been arrested (90%) during their lifetime. Participants reported using survival skills, such as: panhandling (78.1%), temp/part-time work (54.1%), getting money from friends (49.7%) or relatives (36.8%), collecting bottles (22.7%), dealing drugs (34.1%), selling self-made items (24.3%), or gambling (20%). Safety strategies included staying away from certain places (76.8%) or people (70.3%), being with trusted friend (68.6%), carrying a weapon (63.2%), sleeping during the day/staying awake at night (14.1%), or having a dog (11.9%). Qualitative interviews provided more explicit description concerning use of survival and safety strategies. For example: “Make sure you ain't in the wrong area, hanging with the wrong people. But you rarely know who's right or wrong people to hang with…you don't know where you at sometimes, especially if you're traveling.”

Conclusions -- This study provides clear evidence of safety and survival strategies utilized by homeless, street-involved young adults as they cope with their unstable and high-risk environments. While previous research on this population has focused on the unsafe and transient lifestyle of these youth, these findings capture the variety of survival skills and safety strategies that homeless youth employ to live and cope with life on the streets. The results of this study may provide insight for social work practitioners who provide direct care to these homeless young people. Understanding how they navigate their tumultuous environments may assist in development of programs that take into account their unique capacity for coping.