Podcast Transcript: Lifeline to the Streets

Date: 09/04/2009 | Time: 10:01 | Size: 9.2 MB
NCFY staff members shadow two Philadelphia street outreach workers who make contact with runaway and homeless youth and link them to services.
 
NCFY: Welcome to the Positive Youth Development podcast series by the Family and Youth Services Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This series is produced by the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth. FYSB's street outreach program funds organizations that send workers out into the streets to find homeless youth and connect them with services. Among other things, youth receive counseling, survival aid and access to emergency shelter. Clearinghouse writers Eman Quotah and DeQuendre Bertrand recently joined Dexter and Colleen, two young outreach workers for Covenant House Pennsylvania, on one of their missions out into the enclaves of Philadelphia.
 
COLLEEN: Hi, you guys. Can I give you some cards? We're from Covenant House. We have services for youth 21 and under. Do you know anybody who needs help finding a job, getting back into school or needs a place to stay? So, pass it along. My name's Colleen. Can I get your name? Bernard? Bernard, it's nice to meet you.
 
DEXTER: Right now we're looking for any young person that looks like they could be in our age group, 21 and under. We'll pull over, pull to the side. And we'll wait until they come up to the van. They'll walk past the van. I'll ask them do they want to take a card? Then I'll tell them the services that we have. If they're interested, they'll be like, “Oh yeah. I need a job.” Or, “I need ... I'm not living stable right now.” And then I'll go into the shelter details, give them some more information so that we can help them. This is Kensington and Somerset right now. This is where we see a lot of drug addicts, a lot of working girls.
 
NCFY: We went out during the day to some neighborhoods around Philadelphia. One of them had a lot of abandoned buildings, trash and alleyways where Dexter and Colleen said they often find young girls who may be at risk of being sexually exploited. It made us more aware of the dangers that street outreach workers face.
 
COLLEEN: Two weeks ago, we ran into a girl who was working. And her pimp walked right in front of her while I was trying to speak with her. Which is a situation where it makes it difficult to talk to some of the younger girls that we're trying to reach out to and build relationships with. You can tell that he noticed us after we tried to talk to the girl. If we notice someone, they also notice us.
 
DEXTER: Before we do a Zip Code, we scout the neighborhood. We meet with the community relations police officer. And we get to know them and let them know that we will be doing outreach in the neighborhood. We know the places where we can go and where we can't go. Inside abandoned buildings – we don’t’ go inside abandoned buildings. We tend not to go down little dark blocks.
 
COLLEEN: A lot of it is just not acting afraid and just being smart about situations, not walking up to a group of guys. Or if something seems suspicious, we usually drive away or walk away. If it's a situation that we know we need to get ourselves away from, we usually shout out the Nine Line.
 
DEXTER: 1-800-999-9999. It's our nationwide hotline.
 
NCFY: Dexter knew the streets well and where to find youth because he once called them home too. 
 
DEXTER: A lot of people have told me that like they walk around at night. They stay in parks, sleep on park benches. We've got some that stay in abandoned buildings. I know when I was homeless, I stayed down at Fifth Street Park behind Wachovia. It was safe and quiet. Nobody was there to mess with me or anything.
 
A couple of times, Tara asked where'd I used to sleep, where I saw young people at. So basically, we drew a map of places where I was at when I was homeless. We're heading back down to Kensington and Somerset to see if we see any young girls that's in the age group that's working.
 
Usually we get more, I mean, you will see action during the night. Sometimes during the day, you might see the older ones.  But the ones that's in our age group will be out later on. We're in Center City now.  We're about to do a little bit of foot outreach where we get out of the van, walk around Suburban Station and Love Park and see if we see any homeless kids around or any kids. Just make a few contacts.  We'll bring both the coolers, pass out cards, give out juice. 

 
We're in the Suburban Station now. This is where a lot of homeless youth stay in the wintertime.  Sometimes the transit cops harass them. So they go down to the platform where the trains are, all the way to the back. And they sleep down there until the next morning. 
 
COLLEEN: While we're walking around Suburban Station, we try to keep an eye out for youth.  And then also, we place cards in the pay phones so that they can call the Nine Line if they need to. We also place cards in the bathroom. Because we've had youth that have come to the shelter who have said that they have stayed in the stalls of the bathroom. We didn't see anybody today. And typically, that's common.  But we do know that youth come to the station.
 
DEXTER: We’re doing Love Park, and we approached two girls that looked like they were in the age group. We gave them a card, told them about the services that we offer. And she said that she had a friend who's pregnant that is staying somewhere with a guy where she's doing stuff inappropriately just to stay there. So we told her about the shelter that we had. And she wrote down our outreach cell number so that she can call us and we can talk to her and get her into our shelter. 
 
NCFY: The homeless youth that street outreach programs are seeking to help are more independent than children. But they're not quite adults yet.  As hard as life is for them, they are teenagers. They don't want the stigma of people knowing they don't have a place to live. And outreach workers have to be sensitive to that. 
 
DEXTER: Sometimes we do get that question where people will say, oh, I'm not homeless.  But we always ... I always say that we offer many services. We help people get in school, we help people get jobs. We have a clinic. There's a lot of people out there that may not look homeless, but they are homeless. They're like couch hopping or whatever to try to keep up. So they won't look like they're homeless. 
 
COLLEEN: Kids are able to wash up at different shelters. And they also -- when we give out hygiene packs, they'll use them for a day and then throw them away. So that when they are on the streets that people won't think that they're homeless. 
 
NCFY: Even though they have to cover so much distance crossing back and forth around the city, sometimes being in the van has its drawbacks. 
 
COLLEEN: Sometimes in the van, we don't -- there's youth that we drive past and we miss them because of a light or because of a one-way street. And so I just -- I think I would feel more comfortable on my feet than in the van. In certain areas, we would reach more youth. 
 
DEXTER: We discussed doing foot outreach in like Germantown. We do outreach currently in Center City. We have done some foot outreach in Kensington. But it depends. Because you have some neighborhoods where it's dangerous to be on foot. There's a lot of safety reasons. 
 
NCFY: We learned that being a good street outreach worker means being a good student. You learn something on the job every day. And a lot of times, you're learning from the people you help. 
 
COLLEEN: I think the key to street outreach is knowing the services that the city provides, being aware of all of that. Also knowing that you don't know everything. On a daily basis, be ready to learn and be open and be smart about your surroundings. 
 
DEXTER: All I wanted when I was homeless, I guess, having an open ear and somebody listening. So I feel definitely listening is a big part. Well, we had one youth that came in for day services. And he had a similar situation. Couldn't go back to his family. And I told him that I knew how he felt. And it's hard. And sometimes, you just want to know why, you don’t understand. But, I mean, you've got to keep the faith. 
 
NCFY: The National Clearinghouse is a free information service that offers several resources for individuals and organizations interested in helping youth. Our publication, The Exchange, just covered working with homeless youth. There's a whole lot more information on our website.  Check out ncfy.acf.hhs.gov.
 
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