Queer/y/ing pathways through youth homelessness: becoming, being and leaving LGBTQI+ youth homelessness

Abstract

This article extends Clapham’s (2002) concept of ‘housing pathways’ to explore the nature of specific youth homelessness associated with diverse LGBTQI+ identities. Drawing on in-depth interviews with homeless LGBTQI+ youth in Ireland we offer a queer consideration of the structural challenges and agentic potentialities of young people’s housing pathways. Building on these young people’s experiences of becoming, being and leaving homelessness our queering process focuses on three phenomena: queer temporalities, queer liminalities and queer kinships. We argue that due to their evolving sexualities and gender identities ‘housing and home’ have distinctive meanings for LGBTQI+ youth. These meanings prioritise safe, non-homophobic/transphobic spaces, in which they can be themselves without the pressure to conceal their evolving identities or conform to heteronormative expectations. We suggest these meanings inform pathways into, through and out of homelessness and may contribute to higher rates of homelessness among LGBTQI+ youth. Finally, we argue these queerly informed understandings increase knowledge of how proactive interventions might best be framed.