Pa. seeks solution to ‘disconnected youth’

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH

Another teenager shows up on the doorstep of Peggy Harris’ homeless shelter in East Liberty, Pa. Like a lot of the people who come to Three Rivers Youth, he ran away from home.

“Kids who run away are running from something, not to something,” Harris said.

In Pennsylvania, 15 percent of people age 16-19 are neither in school nor employed, according to census data. Policymakers refer to this population as disconnected youth and say that they contribute to long-term poverty rates.

In that category, Pennsylvania tied with West Virginia with the highest percentage in the nation.

Many of these youths end up in shelters.

“These are kids in a lot of cases whose families have disengaged with them. Families will effectively kick their kids out,” she said.

Danielle Gray, deputy director of the National Economic Council, said the issue of disconnected youth is a “huge problem” affecting the entire country.

Desmond Brown specializes in disconnected youth for Half in Ten, a nonprofit that aims to cut American poverty by one-half in the next decade.

“Reducing disconnected youth is a big part of that strategy,” he said. “Those who aren’t studying or working are likely to have a low income. There are a lot of things that cause someone to be poor, such as teen pregnancy, and we know that disconnected youth tend to be more susceptible to teen pregnancy. So when we talk about this issue, there are even more issues that come with it.”

Brown said it’s important to deal with the issue of disconnected youth because a large percentage of that group winds up in poverty.

In other poverty-indicating measures, such as the rates of high school graduation or employment, Pennsylvania ranks about average. Why, then, are so many of its young people on a path toward poverty?

More than 96 percent of unemployed Pennsylvanians are receiving state unemployment benefits, the second most of any state in the nation.

Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto said the cash-strapped federal government has provided less funding for programs to help underprivileged youth, shifting the burden to community groups and local agencies.

The city in 2007 launched the Pittsburgh Promise, a program that guarantees a $20,000 college scholarship for youths who graduate from a Pittsburgh public school or one of its charter high schools while maintaining a 90 percent attendance record and a 2.5 grade-point average.

No school has admitted more Pittsburgh Promise recipients than the Community College of Allegheny County.

The school created the Young Adult Empowerment Program, which recruits troubled youths — usually 17 or 18 years old — from community groups. Now in its third year, the program trains its 41 students to work in welding, plumbing, construction and other fields it has labeled as high priority for the Pittsburgh region.