- New report finds 30 percent of teen parents in Massachusetts have been homeless, By Shira Schoenberg, September 10, 2013, The Republican: “Jasmin Colon, who works for the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, grew up in Florida, with a mother who was in an abusive relationship. Colon helped raise her handicapped brothers. She got kicked out of her house and moved to Massachusetts at age 16, then got pregnant. ‘I was terrified. I didn’t know where I was going to live, how I’d support my son,’ Colon said. Colon said she turned to state agencies for help, but felt stigmatized by some of the providers that were supposed to support her. She moved in with her son’s father and his family. ‘It’s so important for people to understand there are underlying issues when people become young parents, get exploited or become homeless,’ Colon said…”
- Report makes links between abuse, homelessness among teen parents, By Michael P. Norton, September 10, 2013, Patriot Ledger: “Thirty percent of pregnant and parenting teens in Massachusetts were homeless at some point during the past fiscal year and almost 10 percent of teen parents who were homeless had been subject to commercial sexual exploitation, according to a report released Tuesday. The authors of the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy report say it ‘exposes the cascade of trauma’ facing homeless teen parents, finding 59 percent of teen parents who had been homeless had been physically or emotionally abused or neglected by a caregiver and 27 percent had been sexually abused. Researchers cited lack of family support, teens raising siblings, and teens being kicked out by caregivers as reasons for teen homelessness…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty