MENTAL ILLNESS AND ADDICTION ARE COMMON AMONG HOMELESS PEOPLE, CREATING AN ADDED CHALLENGE FOR CHILDREN

By Paul Bennett, volunteer blog writer at Mentor a Promise

The mayoral race in Los Angeles was recently in the news. Incumbent Karen Bass faced a strong showing from former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who among other issues campaigned on the assertion that Bass has allowed an already dire homeless and crime problem on the streets in certain parts of the city to grow substantially worse.

One of Pratt’s main arguments was that drug addiction and mental illness, not lack of housing per se, keep people on the streets, and that providing care and rehab, even if forced (as opposed to providing needles and drugs for “harm reduction”) would go far to help solve the homeless problem.

Which made me think of New York. Is the situation the same here?

New York differs from LA on several fronts. For one, it doesn’t have large areas of concentrated homelessness, as in LA’s downtown “skid row,” or tents and recreational vehicles stretching for blocks on end in some areas, despite the fact there are far more homeless people in New York (about 140,000) than in Los Angeles (about 71,000). In New York, about one-third of the homeless population are children, one of the highest shares in the nation.

In Los Angeles about 70 percent of homeless people are unsheltered, living on streets, in encampments, in cars, and other temporary or makeshift housing. With so few people sheltered, mentally ill people are less likely to get treatment and more likely to pose the threat of harm to themselves and to others. 

In contrast, New York City provides shelter to close to 97 percent of its homeless population, Its three percent unsheltered rate is the second lowest among the 48 localities tracked by HUD, and as such should theoretically allow the city to offer services to the mentally ill and addicts. The city has more than tripled spending on unsheltered homelessness since 2019, shelling out nearly $368 million even as the number of people living on the streets continued to rise, in large part because of the migrant crisis, according to a state comptroller’s report.

New Yorkers are accustomed to seeing homeless people on the streets, trains, and parks, but mental illness or drug use adds an edge. A few recent incidents in New York City are disconcerting, including one in which a 51-year-old mentally unstable homeless man stabbed five people at Penn Station. Even with a system able to house the majority of homeless people and offer a range of services, some will slip through the cracks and, in rare cases, commit violent acts.

Mental Illness in homeless adults adds to the challenges schoolchildren face

NYC’s Department of Health defines serious mental health as one or more mental, behavioral or emotional conditions that significantly impairs the ability to function in daily life. Conditions include: schizophrenia; mood disorders, such as bipolar and major depressive; anxiety disorders; and post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms can vary widely among people who are diagnosed with serious mental illness.

The city does not publish information about the mental health status of homeless people, but outside organizations do. The majority of unsheltered homeless individuals are people living with a mental illness or other severe health problems, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, just as Pratt suggested about LA. Homeless single adults have higher rates of serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and other severe health problems than members of homeless families, a fact that bodes well for children

That said, research consistently finds a high prevalence of parental substance use disorders among families experiencing homelessness. One study found that 74 percent of homeless mothers had used drugs, and another found that two-thirds of parents in families experiencing homelessness had a mental illness or substance use disorder.

Their children are likely to face problems beyond the basic struggles of being homeless or housing insecure. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Youth who have a parent with a substance use disorder (SUD) and who are growing up in families experiencing homelessness face a compounded risk of developing a SUD themselves.”

The New York Department of Social Services offers Families with Children (FWC) clients mental health services, and shelter staff actively work to connect families to these resources. State law explicitly requires that families residing in Tier II shelters—which offer private or semi-private rooms and a fuller range of on-site social services, as opposed to more basic emergency shelter arrangements—have access to on-site mental health services. These include biopsychosocial assessments, referrals to mental health services, and use of partner behavioral health telehealth provider service.

In addition, a range of mental health services exist for children in New York City, including connection to free, confidential crisis counseling, mental health and substance use support, information and referrals; a centralized referral system for children who need intensive mental health services; services provided to children in clinics, doctors' offices, schools or other settings, including clinic treatment and day treatment options; and inpatient psychiatric services, among many others.

Students who are homeless, and especially those in shelters, face tremendous obstacles to success in school, according to Advocates for Children in New York. During the 2023–24 school year, the most recent for which data are available:

• More than half of all students in temporary housing and two out of three students in shelter were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least one out of every ten school days.
• Only 22 percent of students in shelter in grades 3–8 scored proficient on each of the New York State English Language Arts (ELA) and math exams; in both subjects, these proficiency rates were less than half those of permanently housed students.
• One in eight students in shelter dropped out of high school—more than three times the dropout rate of their permanently housed peers—and only 62 percent graduated in four years.

Add to all this the challenge of living with parents dealing with mental illness or drug addiction, and children face massive hurdles to stay on track academically, socially, mentally, and physically.

Community schools such as those that Mentor a Promise works with offer a range of services beyond academic help—including medical, dental, and mental health care—to ensure that homeless and housing insecure schoolkids stay on track. Our regular tutoring programs help young people remain on solid footing in school so that, despite the major challenges in their personal lives, they’ll be well prepared for college and careers. Learn more about our work at www.mentorapromise.org.