Social work project sees an ‘invisible population’: Homeless, unaccompanied youth

By Geoff LoCicero
VCU School of Social Work

Leveraging a national grant, longtime connections in Virginia and research collaborators from five states, Virginia Commonwealth University associate professor of social work Alex Wagaman is leading a project to study and identify solutions for students experiencing homelessness who are without a parent or guardian.

The goal is to strengthen federal and state policy as well as social work practice, and "this group of young people is a pretty invisible population," said Wagaman, Ph.D., who has led or collaborated on a range of projects and grants around populations experiencing homelessness, especially youth. "In Virginia, for example, and in a lot of states, there aren't really many youth shelters or services specifically for youth under 18."

Wagaman noted that there are many assumptions about such youth, such as "if they're not living on the streets or in their car, they must be OK - they must be, you know, figuring it out," she said. "And what young people have been saying, and why we're doing this project, is that actually they are much more vulnerable to exploitation and harm because no one's really keeping an eye on them or offering viable options for safe housing without having to enter a system."

Phase one of the project - titled RISE, which stands for Researching Insights on Students Experiencing Homelessness - is underway to design a research study and collect data primarily on high school-age students in Virginia, along with input from those who serve and support them. Phase two will utilize a $75,000 grant from the Chicago-based Spencer Foundation, which funds education research, to expand RISE to a multistate team and design, which is a step toward ultimately seeking funding for a national study.

Project Hope-Virginia, a state initiative to educate homeless youth, has helped underwrite RISE. Project Hope administers the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, with the goal of ensuring students experiencing housing instability are supported and remain in school.

Wagaman was surprised when Patricia A. Popp, Ph.D., the state Project Hope coordinator, offered funding for the first phase of RISE if she could share data from the new study.

"She said, 'We'd really be excited to support y'all having a pilot in Virginia,'" said Wagaman, who has worked with Popp for more than a decade.

'Looking at the barriers and needs'

There are approximately 20,700 public school K-12 students in Virginia experiencing homelessness, according to Project Hope data from 2023-24, an increase of 18.6% from 2011-12. Good data on those who are also "unaccompanied," meaning without a parent or guardian, are harder to come by, but the risks are clear.

"Not having a parent or guardian does pose barriers to accessing all sorts of services," said Popp, who is also a clinical associate professor in the College of William & Mary School of Education. "There's no way to access your own housing, even to a shelter. If you're under 18, Virginia doesn't allow for that or access to health care that you might need."

She said RISE "seemed like a good opportunity to see if we could help fund that pilot project with the Virginia focus of looking at the barriers and the needs of our unaccompanied youth."

In 2024, the high school graduation rate of 77.3% for students who experienced homelessness at any time was dramatically lower than the overall state graduation rate of 92.8%, according to Project Hope data. The rate is up from 60% when the program began in 2008.

"Education is one of those pieces that, if you don't have it, it's a precipitating factor for continuing the cycle of homelessness," Popp said.

Lived expertise 'enhances community care'

A key component of Wagaman's research team are eight young people who have experienced homelessness. They bring expertise to their role as co-researchers on RISE, whose project team also includes five academic researchers.

Team member Kimberly Embe, who earned her master's degree from VCU's School of Social Work in 2022, first experienced homelessness in high school. She joined Advocates for Richmond Youth, a participatory action research team co-founded by Wagaman, in 2018.

For RISE, Embe will develop questions for the study, help identify gaps in systems and services, and conduct interviews with school officials and student participants.

Ultimately, the team is trying to answer the question of "how do we normalize this experience of homelessness?" said Embe, who previously worked with VCU Health and Henrico County and recently opened a therapy practice.

She said she couch-surfed in high school, and only a small group of people, including her high school social worker, knew of her experience. She was unaware of available support services through McKinney-Vento.

"So many other people on the team have a very similar experience where they didn't know, where even if they had felt comfortable naming their situation and asking for help, they did not know these services were available," Embe said. "And we need to set up [school] staff for support because there may be just one [McKinney-Vento] liaison in an entire school district. How are staff equipped, do they have training, and are they really trauma-informed? We don't want them to cause further trauma."

Lived experience, Embe added, is an important component of RISE because it can level the power imbalance that often occurs between traditional service providers and clients.

"It really enhances community care," she said. "Having that be recognized and named, I think, instills a sense of empowerment. Like, 'Oh, I actually don't have to wait for these systems, or I don't have to interact with people who can be harmful.' This is work that I can do, with people going through something similar. I think that's really, really beautiful."