Homeless young adults and employment: Issues and interventions

Despite such high rates of unemployment, there is limited research concerning homeless young people's employment histories and the barriers they face in gaining and maintaining employment. Similarly, traditional services to homeless young adults-including outreach, basic-center services and transitional-living facilities-lack strong theoretical traditions and evidence regarding their effectiveness in helping these young people gain and maintain employment. Evidence-based and evidence-informed employment models for this population are largely lacking. This chapter provides an overview of the homeless young-adult population in the United States and the factors that influence their unemployment. Next, a review of traditional services is provided. Given the lack of evidence-based and evidence-informed employment models for this population, the primary employment models with adults with mental illness (i.e., supported employment and social enterprises) are reviewed. Guidelines are then provided for researchers and practitioners working with homeless young people regarding employment intervention development. Two intervention strategies are presented: 1) adapting an existing evidence-based employment intervention for adults to use with homeless young people and 2) developing a new evidence-informed employment intervention with agency practitioners and homeless young adults.