Conversation with three of our Spectrum young women

Yesterday I had a conference call with two of our young women who reside in our transitional living program, the SRO, and one young woman who lives in our shelter.  The call was with a CBS News producer who is thinking about doing a story on the recession and how it has effected children and teenagers in this country.

I don’t know if the producer will follow up with us or not, but it was sad and fascinating to listen to these women, all around age 18 or 19, talk about how much worse things have become in the last few months.  They talked about the increasing number of teenagers who are homeless, how it is difficult to find an open shelter bed, and then our own backlog at Spectrum at the SRO.  (Today it is 100% full, I have never seen that in the six years I have been here.)  They talked about the stress that unemployment puts on families, and how that translates into teens hitting the streets.  They talked about their own frustration finding employment.  (“The UVM graduates are taking the jobs we used to get because they can’t find the jobs they used to get after graduating.”) 

The National Catholic Reporter has an article in its present issue, ”Sluggish Economy Brings Rise in Homeless Youth.”  It is mostly about Covenant House (where I started in this work 28 years ago) and their shelters across the country, but it could just as easily be about Spectrum and Vermont.   The situation is the same.   It supports my long-held belief that poverty is what drives youth homelessness. 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 11:38 am and is filed under PRESS COVERAGE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.