Current Service Utilization Among Homeless Youth with Experiences in Foster Care and Criminal Justice

Background: Homeless youth are at an increased risk for experiencing a range of negative outcomes including depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, exchange sex, and intimate partner violence. Although increased service utilization is associated with improved outcomes among homeless youth, this population tends to utilize services at low rates. Previous studies have examined factors associated with service utilization. The present investigation explores how a history in foster care or criminal justice systems influences service use among a population of homeless youth. No study has examined the association between a history of system involvement and current service utilization across a range of service types for this population.

Method: A sample of 386 homeless youth were interviewed at drop-in centers in Los Angeles in 2011-2012. Youth’s experiences of system involvement were determined by questions relating to their self-reported history with the foster care or the criminal justice system. They were asked if they had ever been in foster care, arrested, placed on probation for an offense, or if they had spent time in jail, prison, juvenile detention center, or a correctional facility. Youth were also provided with a 6-point Likert scale and asked to report how often they used food, clothing, shelter, medical, prenatal, birth control, job, therapy, school, and legal assistance to assess service utilization in the past month. Responses ranged from “not at all this month” to “every day or almost every day”. Ordinary Least Square regression models were employed to examine associations between past system involvement and current service utilization, across ten service types.

Results: More than 3 out of every 4 homeless youth had a history of system involvement (84.12%). Prior placements in foster care proved to be a salient factor. Even after controlling for other factors, a history in the foster care system and was associated with increased utilization of services for shelter (B=0.95, t=1.99, p=.047), health care (B=1.07, t=0.42, p=0.01), school assistance (B=0.80, t=2.04, p=0.04), and legal aid (B=1.07, t=2.78, p=0.006). Similarly, a history of experiences in both foster care and criminal justice systems was associated with increased service utilization of food (B= 0.68, t=2.42, p=0.02) and clothing services (B=0.90, t=2.92, p=0.004).  Interestingly, a history of criminal justice system involvement in isolation was not associated with any differences in use of services in comparison to youth with no criminal justice past involvement.

Discussion: The present study expands the current understanding of factors impacting homeless youths’ services utilization. As former foster youth have histories of engagement with social service providers, their increased use of services may indicate that providers engaged with children in foster care may be positively socializing youth toward service utilization. Providers may be able to successfully engage homeless youth who may or may not have a history in foster care with services by using each contact as an opportunity for socialization about services. The data highlight the potential importance of contacts between homeless youth and providers as a strategy that may abate risks youth experience while living on the streets by increasing service use.