Unaccompanied homelessness among high school students across ten states: prevalence and risk in multiple domains

Unaccompanied homelessness during adolescence is a risk factor for varied poor outcomes, yet enumeration efforts struggle to provide feasible results and few analyses consider how risk might differ for this group. We consider data from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 10 states that asked about unaccompanied homelessness and sleeping arrangement. Students who experienced any form of homelessness were at higher risk for poor outcomes and other risk experiences. Few students reported both unaccompanied homelessness and usually sleeping in a homeless situation. Youth experiencing unaccompanied homelessness had higher risk for alcohol problems and lower risk for severe drug use and poor grades compared to students who experienced other forms of homelessness; otherwise they had similar levels of risk for poor outcomes. Results are consistent with the view that students who experience unaccompanied homeless are a distinguishable subpopulation of students who experience homelessness and are at high levels of risk of poor outcomes.