Researchers find one in 10 US youth has been homeless

Washington

HEMMED in by low wages, pricey rental markets and family instability, more young people are crashing on couches of friends or acquaintances, sleeping in cars or turning to the streets, a new study has found.

Researchers with Chapin Hall, a youth policy centre at the University of Chicago, surveyed in 2016 and 2017 more than 26,000 young people and their families across the country to gauge how many of them had been homeless during some period of the previous year. Their results were alarming: One in 10 people aged 18 to 25 had experienced homelessness. For adolescents, the number was one in 30. They concluded that nearly 3.5 million young adults and 660,000 adolescents had been homeless within the previous year.