Editorial
The raw numbers tell a story: A count of homeless students in Washington schools spiked by a third since the depth of the Great Recession. An estimated 4,600 of those students were unaccompanied.
Despite our booming economy, homelessness is on the rise. Especially troubling is the number of youths living on the street. How did they end up there, and what can we do to help them? This Opinion project looks in depth at these issues and proposes solutions.
First in the series: young and homeless
Washington’s child welfare system is mostly closed to adolescents and teenagers. When youths can no longer stay at home and aren’t placed in foster care, they often land on the street, where they are easily victimized.
The Legislature should reopen the door to the child welfare system for these youths with renewed investment in family preservation services and other "upstream" services.
Editorial
The state system to deal with runaways had three chances to intervene for Brittany, a girl in constant motion between homelessness, detention and a crisis center. But that system is a disjointed mess, made worse by budget cuts, leaving teens like Brittany in trouble.
Readers respond
Opinion video
What would have helped you?
Meet six young people from The Mockingbird Society talk about their experiences being homeless and what helped them get off the streets.
Jonathan Martin
Op-ed
Young people of color are also overrepresented among homeless youth.
Second in the series: kids on the run, trapped in cells
Washington’s 20-year-old laws for intervening with truants and runaways send troubled youths to juvenile court, where services are often lacking. Washington leads the nation in detention for these non-criminal "status" offenses.
End the use of detention for status offenses, and create a robust alternative focused on early intervention.
Editorial
Over the past eight years, the state has reduced youth-shelter beds and closed treatment centers and crisis residential facilities, which can be a lifeline for children and their parents. The lack of those services hollowed out the promise of the Becca laws.
Op-ed
As we move about our daily lives, we see figures along the sidewalks and freeways holding signs asking for help. We see makeshift shelters and blankets covering sleeping forms in doorways and alleys.
Op-ed
It’s not uncommon that the parents cannot be found or won’t take back their children.
Op-ed
The Becca laws were intended to help parents intervene in the lives of children who chronically run away or skip school. But they're often a vehicle for sending kids to juvenile detention.
Third in the series: finding a safe place
Washington funds just 23 beds statewide in youth homeless shelters, leaving gaps that force kids on to the street.
Change state law to allow networks of host homes.
Editorial
The very small number of state-funded youth-shelter beds has fallen nearly by half — to 23 statewide — since 2008, even though the beds in Seattle and Everett are constantly full. Now, the plan to end homelessness for youths and young adults in King County pins its hopes on a variety of alternatives to traditional shelters and transitional housing.
Editorial
A grass-roots effort to get gay and lesbian homeless kids off the streets in Minneapolis offers a promising model for King County.
Op-ed
LGBTQ teenagers continue to find themselves without safe shelter at disproportionate rates. We can change that.
Project credits
Writer: Jonathan Martin
Editors: Kate Riley and Mark Higgins
Producers: Nikolaj Lasbo and Caitlin Moran