'On your own:' Being young and homeless in Lebanon

When 15-year-old Brandon returned home from a long day of school and then working at a fast food restaurant, his family had moved.

His parents hadn’t told him they were leaving, but he couldn’t be too surprised – his mom and other relatives typically changed housing arrangements every few months. On the bright side, his belongings had been left untouched at the old apartment.

So he decided to spend the weekend there alone between shifts at work.

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Deb – a leader at Lebanon Valley Youth For Christ – heard the story from Brandon during YFC’s high school night the following Monday, the day before a landlord was requiring Brandon to leave. She and other YFC volunteers decided to help. (The names of Deb and Brandon have been changed to protect their privacy but are known to the Lebanon Daily News. Deb communicated this story.)

Brandon had gotten in touch with his mother by this point. She was staying in half of a house in Lebanon that was filled to the brim with relatives and friends, but Brandon was welcome to stay in the attic. That attic had two broken stairs, broken windows, a single bare lightbulb, and no electrical outlets.

“I can’t stay here,” Brandon said.

The startled adults decided he was right, so they asked Brandon’s mom if he could at least sleep on the couch. She refused.

Deb and her husband decided to let Brandon sleep in their home for a while.

It wasn’t the last time Brandon would be blindsided by sudden changes in his family life – and he’s far from the only Lebanon County teenager who isn’t always sure where he is going to spend the night.

The county’s school districts reported more than 250 homeless students to the Pennsylvania Department of Education last year. Kristen Hoffa, regional coordinator for the Pennsylvania Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness Initiative, thinks there are actually many more students in this position.

“I think when people hear the term homelessness, they have a picture in their head, and I think that picture is the man or woman on the street corner with the cardboard sign,” said Matt Hershey, pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, a downtown Lebanon church that has helped remedy several situations involving homeless teenagers.

Homeless teenagers, instead, are largely invisible. Some are living with their parents, but the parents themselves are living at a homeless shelter or at a campground in the woods. Others “couch surf” with families of friends after abandoning a difficult situation or being kicked out of their home.

Even for people like Brandon who find a loving support network, the instability in their lives can generate nasty surprises.

“My mom really doesn’t love me”

Brandon didn’t have an easy childhood. According to Deb, his parents were living in South Carolina in late 2014 when they brought him to Lebanon to live with his 28-year-old half-sister, who moved frequently and sometimes yelled at Brandon for eating her food.

His mother and 12-year-old sister then moved to Lebanon in spring 2016, but his father was absent, finances were tight and living arrangements continued to change on a regular basis. Brandon has one thing going for him, though.

“He’s got an incredible, charismatic personality,” Deb said. “He lights up the room.”

He made friends despite his troubled home life, and his resiliency allowed him to succeed at a local school, in basketball, and at a job. After his mother’s sudden move in October 2016 that left him only an inhospitable attic for a bedroom, he moved in with Deb and her husband “semi-permanently.”

He even maintained a relationship with his mom and relatives, sharing a Thanksgiving dinner with them at Deb’s home and buying them Christmas presents.

But one day in February 2017, Brandon’s normal optimism had been replaced by flowing tears.

“It’s true,” he said.

“What?” Deb asked.

“My mom really doesn’t love me,” he said.

He had texted his mother to ask if she wanted to join him for church that day. In reply, she said that she had just moved to western Pennsylvania.

At this point, Deb sought and acquired guardianship of Brandon.

“You’re on your own”

The problem of homelessness in Lebanon isn’t new. Deb recently learned that a 40-year-old friend who grew up Lebanon slept under a bridge when she was in middle school and high school.

“The truancy officers used to come pick her up in the morning, take her to the high school early so she could take a shower and go to school. And then at night, she’d go home with this teacher or that teacher who would give her a meal, and then they would take her back to the bridge,” she said.

It also isn’t only in the city. Of the 253 reported homeless students in Lebanon County in 2015-16, about 100 came from the county’s other districts.

The numbers have risen over the past three years, something Hoffa believes is due to both an increase in homelessness and school districts becoming better at identifying people who are homeless. About 40 percent of those are “unaccompanied youth” not living with a guardian, while others are living with parents who are themselves homeless.

Some of the unaccompanied youth are kicked out by their parents, a situation that becomes more common when they become a legal adult at 18.

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“We run into parents who just say, we’ve had enough, you’re 18, you’re on your own,” said Troy Williams, executive director of Lebanon County Christian Ministries. In one case, someone literally dropped an 18-year-old off at LCCM’s doorstep with only a bag containing his belongings.

In other cases, the child chooses to leave a toxic home situation fractured with drugs or violence.

The opioid crisis, in particular, is taking a toll on children of addicts. One 18-year-old girl who stayed at the Lebanon Rescue Mission’s Agape Family Shelter had been living alone in such deplorable conditions that a neighbor felt compelled to contact the shelter, said Susan Blouch, executive director of Lebanon Rescue Mission. Her mother had died of an overdose and her father was in active addiction.

Still other parents do want to help their children, but after losing a job are unable to even support themselves. Many of those families go to Hopes Resources Center.

“Embarrassed all the time”

Hopes Resource Center on North Ninth Street in Lebanon is quiet in the late morning, but it gets pretty noisy around 3:30 p.m. when children return home from school, said Wenda Dinatale, client services manager for Lebanon County Christian Ministries. Usually about half of the families staying there have children who eagerly play with toys and eat snacks provided by the center before tackling the night’s homework.

The center helps provide stability and some normality to families with young children without a place to stay, and Dinatale said young children are usually versatile and accepting of one another. Teenagers, however, often become angry or withdraw out of fear their classmates will discover their situation.

“You don’t bring friends over to your house, and you don’t go to the prom because you don’t have money for that. You don’t even go to the football games, because you don’t have the three bucks to go to the football game. And you’re just embarrassed all the time,” Deb said.

People who are homeless – including teenagers – are three times more likely than others to experience anxiety or depression, said Louis Laguna, professor of psychology at Lebanon Valley College. Instability at a young age can also impair cognitive development and intellectual functioning. They often don’t eat a proper diet, which causes physical and emotional harm.

There are typically 5-10 juveniles on probation at any given time who do not have a permanent address, said Susan Christner, deputy director for the juvenile unit at Lebanon County Probation Services. Some of them turned 18 while attending a placement facility and their parents refused to let them come back when they left the facility. With no permanent address or established credit, it becomes difficult for them to get an apartment or even obtain employment.

“The odds are kind of stacked against them,” Christner said.

Still, there are rays of hope even in the darkness. Two young men who stayed at the Lebanon Rescue Mission during their senior year of high school didn’t have parents to help them with homework, so other men staying at the shelter helped them instead, Blouch said.

Finding a home

Making matters even worse for unaccompanied teenagers, many shelters are not equipped to help people under 18. The Lebanon Rescue Mission, for example, only accepts adults because the needs of teenagers are different from those of adults, Blouch said. There is not currently an in-county residential facility for homeless people under 18, she said.

If someone becomes aware that a person under 18 is homeless, they can report it to Lebanon County Children and Youth Services, which will find an adult to care for the child. Children and Youth will first look for appropriate relatives, but if there is no workable home with a relative, the agency will take the child into protective custody, said executive director Jim Holtry.

In those cases, Children and Youth may put the children in a shelter on a short-term basis but will typically look to place them in foster care, Holtry said.

School districts are required by federal law to immediately enroll students without a home address when a parent or guardian seeks enrollment. Federal law also protects “continuity of education” for students so that they don’t have to change schools every time their living situation changes, said Chris Danz, assistant to the superintendent at Lebanon School District.

Every district is also required to have a liaison to homeless youth. Danz said Lebanon also has family involvement coordinators that help families of homeless students get the broader community services they need.

The district is also able to offer both breakfast and lunch to all students free of charge thanks to federal funds the district receives.

How to  help                                                      

Brandon is now 17. He has a driver’s license, pays for his own cell phone, is excited for the upcoming basketball season, is studying at the Lebanon County Career and Technology Center, and is making plans for post-high school education. He joined a mission trip to Haiti this summer.

There are steps community members can take to help people like Brandon beat the odds.

Making a Difference of Lebanon, Pa is collecting toiletries for homeless youth in Lebanon County through Friday. Donors can bring items like toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, combs and brushes, and laundry detergent to several churches and businesses in Lebanon.

More:Items being collected for homeless youth

At 9 a.m. Saturday morning, group members will be filling a trailer with the supplies and taking them to Hopes Resource Center and the local school districts, said Cornell Wilson, a city councilman and member of the Lebanon County Commission to End Homelessness.

The Hopes Resource Center can always use financial support, officials said, and there are also volunteer opportunities available that can fit any work schedule.

Perhaps most important, Dinatale said, is simply advocating for and giving a voice to the homeless, who are often invisible to the public.