Youth Homelessness, Schooling, and the Burden of Navigation

In this study, I explored how high school-aged youth experiencing homelessness navigate racially and geographically stratified spaces to access the educational and physiological resources necessary to complete high school. Drawing on comprehensive interviews with 23 youth in Los Angeles County, I investigated how systemic inequities in spatial resource distribution shape student mobility, access to school supports, and the role of institutional and community actors. Using social-capital theory and the American Human Development Index (HDI) as guiding frameworks, results reveal how youth traverse neighborhoods with varying levels of opportunity, often engaging in what I term resource hopping; that is, strategically traveling between underresourced and affluent areas to meet basic needs. Although schools and community-based organizations can act as critical bridges, disparities in identification, transportation, and access persist, particularly in suburban and low-HDI communities. The findings illustrate four distinct strategies youth employ to meet their needs and highlight the importance of spatially informed policies and locally grounded interventions. Study results call for a rethinking of how people conceptualize homelessness across urban and suburban geographies and urge educational and housing systems to align supports in ways that reduce the burden of navigation on youth.