Homeless youth with intellectual disabilities: Precarious lives and health inequalities.

Background: Youth with intellectual disabilities experiencing homelessness are invisible within multiple service sectors. We know little about their experiences of homelessness, or the impacts of such on the social and physical health and well‐being. Methods: We used quantitative and qualitative methods to measure prevalence and learn from key informants and homeless youth with intellectual disabilities about factors leading to and sustaining homelessness, and the implications of such on their social, physical, and mental health and well‐being. The project involved seven co‐researchers with intellectual disabilities and experience of youth homelessness in research design, data collection, analysis, and dissemination. We created Forum Theatre scenes that creatively represent the findings of the project. In this paper we share one of those scenes, as well as the recommendations three co‐researchers with intellectual disabilities have for improving support to homeless youth with intellectual disabilities. Findings: Lack of awareness of and about homeless youth with intellectual disabilities, combined with siloed ways of working by involved sectors, results in significant disadvantage and health inequities for youth. Also revealed was the likelihood this would continue given existing obstacles to accessing appropriate housing and supports to exit homelessness. Conclusion: Services providers, policy makers and representatives of the involved sectors need to recognize and acknowledge homeless youth with intellectual disabilities and take responsibility for learning and working together to develop integrated and responsive approaches to effectively supporting them. Accessible Summaries: Many youths with intellectual disabilities are homeless, but we do not know very much about them. We do not know how they became homeless, what their lives are like when they are homeless or how being homeless affects their health.The (name withheld) research project included academic researchers and co‐researchers with intellectual disabilities, who had experience of being homeless. They spoke to service providers and to homeless youth without intellectual disabilities about these things.They learned that most homeless youth with intellectual disabilities have had very difficult lives. They face many challenges every day. They don't have access to health care, mental health supports, food and nutrition or physical safety. Attending school or having a job is harder to do when you are homeless.Many different services are involved in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities who are homeless. However, these services don't know about each other or work together to support homeless youth with intellectual disabilities.Service providers, governments and policy makers need to take responsibility to learn about the lives of homeless youth with intellectual disabilities. They must work together, and with homeless youth with intellectual disabilities, to develop better supports for this group of youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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