Shelters, Training, Caring Transforms Homeless Teens

Shelters, Training, Caring Transforms Homeless Teens

(August 9, 2007) -- He walks downtown on pavement punctuated by dirt-filled cracks.

John Gallegos, 18, sees the homeless in their dirty clothing sitting against the walls of dingy buildings.

"I just wonder how they ended up like that," Gallegos said.

But when the homeless ask him for some change, he gives more than the extra coins from his pocket.

He gives them the money even when he can't pay his rent.

"Money is always an issue," he said.

Statistically speaking, Gallegos' past makes him a viable candidate for poverty or homelessness.

Gallegos' mother committed suicide when he was 5 and his father died the day before his 13th birthday.

He lived with his half-sister's dad until Child Protective Services took him out of his home at age 15.

Gallegos moved from foster home to foster home with nothing to his name. Now, through the Baptist Child and Family Services' after-foster-care program, Preparation for Adult Living, Gallegos is beating the odds.

A little more than one-quarter of the homeless population reported having been in foster care as a child, according to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients.

And in the most recent comprehensive survey of the nation's homeless populations by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, unaccompanied youths made up 1.4 percent of the more than 700,000 people who experienced homelessness in a three-month period in 2005.

Terri Hipps, program director of Preparation for Adult Living (PAL), said children aging out of foster care contribute to the population of poor teens because when they hit the legal adult age, they don't know how to support themselves.

"Most of the homeless have been in foster homes sometime in their life," Hipps said. "They don't have support in crisis situations. These young adults don't have jobs, and if they don't have a job, they don't have housing. If they have children, there's no day care. It's a cycle."

Theresa Vasquez, program manager for the Salvation Army's Village Program, agrees, noting a lack of parental support is a factor in homelessness.

"It's usually the parent who has the deficiency," Vasquez said. "The teens come from dysfunctional families with no skills to be on their own."

The problems causing the lack of parental support stem from anything from sexual, verbal or physical abuse to not enough income to support a family.

"The younger kids are rich with parental support," said Andy Contreras, executive director of the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club. "When you get to the older kids, they are poor with parental support."

But Contreras acknowledges some parents working two or three jobs just to make ends meet can create gaps in a child's support system.

"A lot of these kids are fending for themselves," he said. "We are the gaps."

Kat Golando of Roy Maas Youth Alternatives and former director of the Bridge Emergency Shelter said weak parental support prevents children from fully developing adult skills to succeed.

"They're on survival mode, and that means because of their situation they can't really plan for the future," Golando said. "They're trying to figure out how to eat and how to find a safe place. Things like school aren't really thought about."

Golando said this survival mode comes from being in unstable families.

She also said teens suffer from not being able to get an education, which ultimately affects job opportunities.

"It's a pretty big task trying to break that cycle," Hipps said. "Our goal is to prevent the cycle of homelessness with post-PAL services, monthly meetings and emergency fund cases."

Some believe adult homeless shelters combat teen homelessness, but Hipps disagrees. She said adults who are 18 to 21 still have the teenage mentality and therefore need a shelter specialized for them.

The PAL Youth Center near San Antonio College affords former foster children the opportunity to attain adult skills that increase their chances to survive the real world.

PAL assists these young adults so they can stay in school and gain life skills, such as cooking.

PAL also walks young adults through attaining free or low-cost insurance and in getting jobs or money for rent.

The Bridge Emergency Shelter provides anger management training and other classes for adult skills.

Golando believes this slowly stops the cycle.

"They don't need pity, but structure to help them get back on their feet," Golando said. "We hone life skills through the courses we offer."

Contreras starts honing life skills with children as young as 6 — not through courses, but through camping trips, character-building and playtime at his club.

"It's something not pushed down their throats," Contreras said. "But kids need a type of firmness."

The oldest teen in the club is 15, but Contreras already has some of the preteens thinking about college through a program called Dare 2 DV8.

"I'm having them fill out college scholarships," Contreras said. "I'm trying to give tools to preteens for college."

College can help break the homeless cycle by giving teens the needed education most high-paying jobs require.

"Education helps decrease poverty, because if students are educated in high school and beyond, it opens opportunities for employment," said Cynthia L. Martinez, the federal programs compliance director at Southside Independent School District. "Knowledge is power."

Although education can impact poverty rates, the community's treatment of impoverished teens makes a difference.

Golando acknowledges that volunteer involvement is good, but the way people act can impact a homeless teen's situation significantly.

"Don't ignore them," she said. "... they're somebody's kid."

Vasquez agrees that attitudes affect impoverished teens.

"The worst thing is to look at them in an unfriendly way," she said. "They're not mean, they're just homeless. Don't categorize them as lazy or crazy because we're all one or two paychecks from being in a similar situation."

By: Alina Espinoza O'Connor High School

Source: mysanantonio.com

Last updated: 08/07

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Shelters, Training, Caring Transforms Homeless Teens