Doctoral Dissertation Research: Youth Homelessness: Street Kids in the Urban South

青年无家可归：城市南部的街头儿童LGBTQ青年估计至少占美国青年无家可归人口的40%，尽管只占美国青年人口的5%-8%。在进行访谈和民族志实地研究时，本研究考察了LGBTQ如何成为无家可归者，他们的特定需求，以及他们作为LGBTQ和无家可归者与其他人的互动。通过揭示影响LGBTQ无家可归青年的日常经历和不同问题，该项目将研究贫困背景下的性别和性如何影响年轻人如何成为无家可归者和经历无家可归。这项研究还为有关LGBTQ人群的更广泛的文献增加了一个新的空间背景-城市南部。“新无家可归者”是新自由主义经济社会结构调整带来的贫困和日益严重的收入不平等的明显标志。很少有研究研究更大的社会力量如何边缘化LGBTQ人群也可能导致新的无家可归者，特别是新的年轻人无家可归者。这一差距尤其严重，因为LGBTQ无家可归的青年占美国无家可归青年人口的比例不成比例。在无家可归青年收容中心和LGBTQ青年无家可归者收容所进行人种学田野调查时，这项研究询问了与当今青年无家可归、性别和性有关的特定过程。与大多数关于LGBTQ生活的研究发生在东北部、西海岸和中西部相比，这项研究发生在南部州，那里对LGBTQ民权的支持较少，在工作场所、住房或其他住宿方面缺乏对LGBTQ人的保护。缺乏对LGBTQ和低收入人群的支持，为研究南方城市青年无家可归、性别和性取向提供了一个未得到充分审查的社会和经济环境。

Youth Homelessness: Street Kids in the Urban SouthLGBTQ youth are estimated to make up at least 40 percent of the youth homeless population in the United States, despite being only about 5-8 percent of the U.S. youth population. In conducting interviews and ethnographic field research, this study examines how LGBTQ become homeless, their specific needs, and their interactions with other people as being both LGBTQ and homeless. Through uncovering the day-to-day experiences and distinct issues affecting LGBTQ homeless youth, this project will examine how gender and sexuality within the contexts of poverty affect how young people become and experience homelessness. This research also adds a new spatial context - the urban South - to the literature on LGBTQ people more generally. The "new homelessness" is a visible marker of the poverty and growing income inequality that has followed the neoliberal economic re-structuring of society. Little research examines how larger social forces that marginalize LGBTQ people may also contribute to the new homelessness, in particular, the new youth homelessness. This gap is especially critical because LGBTQ homeless youth disproportionately make up the youth homeless population in the United States. In conducting ethnographic fieldwork at a homeless youth drop-in center and at a LGBTQ youth homeless shelter, this study asks about the particular processes associated with youth homelessness, gender, and sexuality today. Compared to the Northeast, West coast, and Midwest where most studies on LGBTQ life take place, this study occurs in a Southern state where there are less favorable views of LGBTQ civil rights, and a lack of protections for LGBTQ people in the workplace, in housing, or in other accommodations. This lack of support for LGBTQ and low-income people provides an under-examined, social and economic climate in which to study youth homelessness, gender and sexuality in the urban South.