Show 54: Excerpt - What Do Alaska's Homeless Teens Look Like?

Keeping Kids Off the Street: Snapshot of Covenant House Alaska

This story was originally featured on Show 54: Homeless Youth in Alaska

LAST YEAR THE Institute for Social and Economic Research at UAA took fifteen years of data gathered by Covenant House Alaska between the years of 1993 and 2008 and organized it into a meaningful, overall picture of the young people who use the Covenant House Crisis Center services. (The resulting report, Keeping Kids Off the Street: Snapshot of Covenant House Alaska, is available as a PDF.) 

Keeping Kids Off the Street: Snapshot of Covenant House Alaska

The report showed where the homeless youth came from the night before coming to CH, their age and race, and what "additional" mental, physical or substance abuse issues these young people were dealing with besides homelessness.

Keeping Kids Off the Street: Snapshot of Covenant House Alaska

Dr. Stephanie Martin, an Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy was the lead analyst for this report, and she spoke with our producer, Sarah Gonzales, about what "fascinating and horrifying" trends the data reveal about homeless teens in Alaska.