Homeless teens and young adults find shelter and a future in Denver

DENVER — David Jennings was 16 when he found himself on the streets, an angry, violent young man.

“I grew up in a really abusive household,” said Jennings, now 30. “I only understood one thing, and that was violence.”

After couch-surfing at a friend’s house, he went to a homeless shelter with a youth program. A counselor there referred him to Urban Peak, a Denver program that offers shelter, transitional housing, job training and more to homeless youth ages 15 to 24.

“I learned so much about myself and about the world, and that people really did care,” Jennings said of his year and a half living in an Urban Peak apartment and getting counseling through the program.

Adolescents and young adults on their own make up a fraction of the nation’s homeless population. Most face rejection or abuse from their families. Traditional programs aimed at the chronically homeless often place them in a potentially dangerous situation at a vulnerable age.

There's a lot that is still unknown about this sector of the homeless population. The numbers are inexact. And it's not clear beyond well-known programs in New York, San Francisco and Cincinnati, to name a few, just how many centers like Urban Peak exist. While more research needs to be done, what is clear is that they offer perspectives on how to prevent homeless teens from becoming homeless adults.

More than 610,000 people were counted as homeless in an annual survey conducted in January 2013 and reported to Congress in November. Of those, 200,000 were under 25, but only about 47,000 of those were estranged from their families, the report said.

Cities such as Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco have the highest concentrations of homeless youth.

Those annual numbers come from a “point-in-time” survey, when all information is taken on a single night by volunteers on the streets and in shelters. Since it's unlikely that volunteers can find everyone living on the streets, especially in urban areas, the actual numbers of homeless are apt to be larger.

Jennings never knew his father; he was one of four boys his mother had by age 22.

“She married a man who was very violent,” he said. “My mom would kick me out and tell me she couldn’t handle me. I was a pretty angry kid.”

Jason Marquez tells a different story. At 19, he seemed to have an idyllic life.

"I had grown up in a rich, upper-class white family,” said Marquez, now 26.

But his parents kicked him out when he told them about his gender identity.

“I’m transgender, and I became homeless after informing my parents of my decision to transition,” he said. “To me, this was a necessity, this was something I had to do to be successful in life.”

He, too, wound up at Urban Peak, after seeking a place to stay at the group’s shelter.

There’s a certain stigma attached to young people living on the street that’s different from that for older, chronically homeless people, said Amy Dworsky, a senior researcher who studies youth and homeless issues at the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall policy research center.

“I think people who do see homeless youth out on the street do sort of think they’re bad kids who should just go back to their parents,” Dworsky said. “Many of them can’t go back home to their parents. They left home for a reason.”

In fact, both Jennings and Marquez tried to reunite with their parents at least once before going to Urban Peak. Both ended up spending time in the organization’s transitional housing program.

For Marquez, the couple of years there gave him time to save money for surgery and a chance to learn how to live on his own.

“When you suddenly, abruptly become homeless,” he said, “that’s not something you’re ready for. A lot of the stuff we really take for granted in living independent is stuff we have to be taught.”

One Tuesday in December, a dozen or so young people were on the street corner outside Urban Peak, talking, dozing, smoking and just generally hanging around.

Inside, on the first floor, is a drop-in center that is Urban Peak’s most popular service. A young person slept on a bench near the main desk, while others walked in and out. Inside, a couple of young men were asleep, heads on tables; others played cards or chatted. Around the corner, two volunteers with plastic boxes filled with beads, wiring and other adornments were teaching several clients to make earrings.

“These young adults don’t fit well into the homeless-adult service provider situation,” said Gary Sanford, who founded Urban Peak in 1988 and is now director of the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. “A lot of agencies don’t know how to serve these young people and are challenged by them.”

When placed together with adults, young people may be abused or harassed, he said, and they might ask, "Wow, is this going to be my life in 20 to 30 years?”

It isn’t life for Marquez or Jennings.

Marquez worked in social services while living in one of Urban Peak’s transitional housing units and earned an undergraduate degree, “with excellent grades, I might add.” He now works for the state’s health care policy agency.