Austin S.
Mrs. Zurkowski
Purples
1 October 2010
Teen Homeless Shelters – Their Rules and Regulations
Teen homeless shelters are becoming harder and harder to get into or stay inside of. If a teenager becomes homeless in today’s society, it would be nearly impossible for them to get any sort of help. Even if they did, it would be even more difficult for them to keep that help. Most teens end up worse off than they were before they joined a shelter. In light of this, teen homeless shelters and outreach programs must lower their strict rules that make people either contact or rejoin their families, get placed in foster care, have a certain income, or stay at the shelter consecutively due to the special needs or conditions of each individual person. If this happens, hundreds, no thousands, of homeless teens will receive relief quicker and more efficiently than they ever have before.
Each person has special needs that only apply to them. To make everyone follow a strict set of rules that force a person to do something might end up causing major trauma to that person. Each person should be evaluated and given help according to their own agenda and given a set of rules that correspond to that agenda. For instance, one homeless child, Nicole, was enrolled in a school that gave three meals a day– breakfast, lunch, and dinner - because her parents could not afford to pay for both school and food for her.(Teicher). Her family therefore needed a supply of food to help feed their family. One way to improve a homeless teen’s life is to prescribe a set of rules that does not limit the amount of time the service is rendered, but limits the amount of service reviewing the family’s state of being, fairly and all-inclusively. Unfortunately, this was not all of the family’s problems. Nicole grades were slipping because she needed time and essential supplies for school and a happy home life. (Teicher). To help, people should donate academic items, like rulers, or home life items, such as soap. The rules applied should be about how the substances are put to use, not on the amount of income the family has. And this is just one family.
Tinesheia Howard lived in an emergency shelter when she was in high school. The experience gave her a lot of stress and one cause of this was limited privacy. (Kasland). "I was looking mean and tired...For me, school was difficult. I was stressed. Everybody had no clue what I was going through." (Tinesheia Howard - Homeless Teen). (Kasland). She should be helped by being given counseling sessions. Rules should apply to how she reactions to the treatment. So you can see there are many different needs and not all should apply to the same set of rules.
The needs of the homeless in general are very different than the rest of society. To help, we have to be open and willing to help in different ways. In interviews with 50 homeless teens only 42% of them used shelters because they were so scared they would be sent home. (Stanford). Most homeless teens wanted help, but not lasting relationships (where they had to continuously come back to or rely on one organization or person) to get it. (Stanford). They were afraid that the people who run the outreach programs would force them to return to their families. To help, we have to bend a little to their different ways of need. Homeless teens want to get back into the cycle; they want a place to sleep, a job, some food, counseling, and health service, but only if there were no extras or strings attached. (Stanford). So they are not ripping you off if you bend, you see. "It is cold and miserable on the streets, but it is better than being beaten up by parents who don't care." (Homeless Teen [Name Unknown]) (Stanford). To help, one has to consider all the differences in needs.
Some people may not accept or be eligible for help because of restrictions or rules. The Patrick Administration in Massachusetts has proposed laws that deny shelter to families who either have been evicted or have abandoned public shelters without good cause, or failed to work 30 hours a week. (Abel). Now families in Massachusetts have to save 30% of their income or they are denied shelter. (Abel). Now they have lowered the time amounts for job hours as well. If you hold a job for three months, you have to leave. (Abel). One quote in particular seems to describe the overall scenario rather well: "I would rather be homeless." (Homeless Teen [Name Unknown]) (Stanford).
Money is needed to run the shelters, so rules have to be enforced to limit the number of people using them. The current program doesn't provide the best affordable service so it can keep working. (Abel). If you take away the only shelter some families have, it will only make homelessness worse. Tom Lorello (Executive Director of Heading Home) says "...some people can't save their income because they have debts to pay..." (Abel). Shelters need rules to maintain order. If you are respectful to others by following rules, you will get more service than if you break them; therefore people don't want to break rules and it maintains order. If you are worried about order, input security personnel that deal with each individual person or incident instead of rules which restrict everyone. People who work with homeless say shelter's rules only make it harder for the homeless to get back on their feet. (Abel).
Strict rules for homeless shelters that are detrimental to the overall effect of the shelters must be eliminated or at least lowered.
Works Cited
Abel, David. “Homeless Families Face Strict New Rules” Global Newspaper Company. Copyright 2009. Web. 30 September 2010.
Hacker, Dianna. The Bedford Handbook. (Seventh Edition). Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2006. Print.
Kasland, Karen. "Out of place: for homeless teens, challenges are everywhere." Current Health 2, a Weekly Reader publication Mar. 2010: 26+. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 21 Sept. 2010.
Stanford University. “Stanford: News Release Study Sheds Light On Hidden Population Of Homeless Teens”. 11/18/91. Stanford University. 9/13/2010.
Teicher, Stacy A. "For Homeless, No Place Like School." Christian Science Monitor. Feb. 8 2005: n.p. SIRS Researcher. Web. 21 Sep 2010.
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