Voices from the Margins: Understanding Street Youth in Winnipeg‪.‬

Abstract This paper aims to inform the development of services and policies to address youth homelessness. This research addressed the following questions: (1) How youth became involved with the street? (2) What their lives were like on the street? (3) What barriers prevented them from leaving the street? And, (4) what facilitated their transition off the street? Using the principles of participatory research, we conducted in-depth one-on-one interviews with twelve young people who had been or were street-involved. We found that youth perceived no acceptable alternative to homelessness after being kicked out of or leaving their homes. A key finding was that youth encountered barriers to leaving the street because they fell between systems meant to support adults and those for children. Youth need a targeted set of services over an extended period of time to facilitate their reintegration into mainstream society.