From Homeless Teen to Chronically Homeless Adult: A Qualitative Study of the Impact of Childhood Events on Adult Homelessness

Summary

This article is published in the journal Critical Social Work and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

In this paper, attention will be paid to the conceptualization of adult homelessness though the lens of chronically homeless adults who became homeless as teens, looking particularly at the impact of adverse childhood events. The study bridges the usual divide between youth and adult homeless populations both as distinct research populations and as populations understood to have distinct causes of homelessness. This examination reveals important ways in which conceptions of homelessness have become decontextualized from the narrative of moving from teen to adult homelessness, from understandings of home and from a subjectivity, which is not determined by housing status. To interrupt the connection between adverse childhood events and adult homelessness, the case will be made that our response to homelessness must include a response to the trauma suffered by persons who were homeless when they were youth.