Connecting with Homeless Teens
Kathy Leslie is on a mission. She has decided to change the world, one homeless kid at a time.
It started a couple of years ago when she transferred to the University of Utah and randomly took a few classes in Communication. “I was totally surprised by how passionate I became about my Communication courses,” she notes. “I felt like I had found my home.” She quickly changed her major to Speech Communication with an emphasis on conflict management, and became a peer advisor in the department. At the same time, she quit her job in what she refers to as “the corporate world.” and began exploring more meaningful options. “I figured out that making money was not enough for me,” Kathy stated. “I wanted more. I wanted to make a difference.” She was soon asked to consider a new Youth Outreach Worker position in Salt Lake City’s Youth Homeless Center. “I like getting my hands dirty, getting right in and making things happen. This job working with homeless teens was just the ticket.”
The Center is the only such facility for youth ages 15 – 22 in the Salt Lake community, and sees a startling volume of kids (according to Kathy, between 20 and 50 teens each day.) The Center provides basic services, food, and clothes, as well as help with job hunting, obtaining health care, and finding housing. “We work with a lot of kids in crisis, including suicide intervention,” Kathy notes. “But sometimes what these troubled teens really need is just someone to sit with them, to watch a movie, to be ‘normal’.”
Kathy admits that every day at the Center is both emotionally and physically difficult. “But,” she emphasizes, “it’s wonderful, too.” She says working there has opened her eyes to a world that most of us try to forget about. “It’s very humbling. I realized that what I have in my life isn’t even possible for most of these kids.” And the injustice makes her want to fight – for the kids, for their rights and for their futures. “I want to fight for what they deserve.”
In a February 13 2009 article in the Deseret News, writer James Thalman quotes Candace, a visitor to the Center: “Down and out is a state of mind, not a condition of life... This is the situation I'm in, but this situation is not me."
Solo, another homeless teenager quoted in the article, agrees: "Life just throws you a curve sometimes, and you just got to do what you have to do. So I've just stepped aside for a minute. But like David's lost sheep, I'll be back."
Candace and Solo are typical of the teens that frequent the Center. Although it may be easy for some to see their tough exteriors and make assumptions, Kathy now understands that for the most part these are not bad kids. “Most often, these are just children who have had some really, really tough breaks in their lives, and they deserve our help.” She notes that many of these homeless teens are on the streets because of an abusive home life, or because parents are involved in drugs, or are in jail with no one left at home to care for them. These children choose street life as a better alternative. “I want to study homeless youth from an organizational communication perspective. These individuals forge very powerful relationships - street families - and they would die for each other. They’re misunderstood, and taken for granted.” Kathy notes that a common problem she encounters in helping homeless teens get on their feet is helping them get jobs. “They interview for a job - and get the job because a lot of them are bright and motivated. But then they’re told they need a social security number. Most of these kids have bounced from foster home to foster home. Even though they’re completely legal citizens, they don’t even have a birth certificate. They don’t have a social security number, so they can’t keep their jobs. And so they end up back on the streets.”
Kathy notes that this is an example of a law established to protect our society, but that has an unintended consequence of fostering homelessness. “It’s hard to get on your feet without a job, but they can’t get a job without a society security card.” The shelter case managers work to help obtain needed social security numbers, but according to Kathy so many homeless youth don’t even realize this is a resource available to them.
While statistics vary about the actual number of homeless teens in Salt Lake City, Kathy notes that the best estimates show the population has at least tripled in the past 18 months. She wants to know why – and more importantly, she wants to do something about it. In her graduate work she’ll be focusing on organizational communication. “I want to explore the structures inherent in our society that set these kids up for failure – I want to study how we foster homelessness, even unintentionally.” She notes that most children in foster care are “aged out” at 18 years of age. “They’re given a $700 check and a wish for luck. It’s not enough. They don’t have the necessary survival skills to be successful.”
Kathy believes that, as a society, we lack education and awareness of homeless youth. As a result we too often unwittingly become part of the problem. She wants to shine a light on the problem, to raise awareness. She believes that even just raising local awareness of these at-risk children will help. “Right now, we can’t even keep the shelter open on weekends because we don’t have the resources. It’s so sad.” She’s hopeful that as more people understand the problem, solutions may present themselves in the form of additional funding and support. “These kids really need – and deserve – a safe place to stay seven days a week. We owe this to them - and to our community.”
This past spring, Kathy completed her BA in Speech Communication, and has been awarded a graduate fellowship in Organizational Communication. She’ll be continuing her graduate studies at the University, in addition to teaching in the Communication Department and volunteering at the Youth Homeless Center. Once she completes her graduate program, she hopes to continue on to obtain a Ph.D. perhaps in counseling. “I want to help. There is so much that needs to be done. Here in our own community we need more shelters, more prevention done in the schools, teaching kids about life is really like on the streets, and giving them the resources to stay off the streets and to succeed.”
In short, she wants to change the world – at least for a few teenagers that too many have forgotten.