Homeless Youth Resources

This past summer, the City of Santa Barbara spent numerous law enforcement hours to diminish the homeless youth nuisance on State Street. The question now is, where are those young people now? If you look near the shrubbery at the beaches at night and near the freeway off-ramps and local parks, these kids can be seen congregating like gypsies, sharing the proceeds they panhandled throughout the day.

The Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (RHYTPA, S. 2646) is a reauthorization that would provide additional federal grants to public agencies (as well as nonprofit private agencies) to provide street-based services to runaway and homeless youth and street youth who have been subjected to, or are at risk of being subjected to, sexual abuse, violence, trafficking in persons, or sexual exploitation. It also allows for extra funding for the provision of specified resources for gay and trafficked youth. The bill is currently sitting in the Senate with a 20 percent prognosis of passing next year and needs support.

It is not enough that California has one of the largest homeless youth populations in the country with over 200,000 of the 1.6 billion homeless teens in the U.S. More concerning is that Santa Barbara County has between 5,000 and 10,000 of these young people, a large percentage of whom are gay. Gay runaway homeless youth have the highest potential risk of being sexually exploited or trafficked and committing suicide.