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Urban Institute recently publish a unique look into survival sex, a strategy used by many young people in order to survive while living on the streets of New York City. Meredith Dank, author and Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute, conducted a three-year study of LGBTQ youth in partnership with New York City-based organization Streetwise and Safe (SAS) using interviews with 283 youth who engaged in survival sex, defined as receiving payment in the form of cash or other in-kind payment in exchange for sex and trades, in New York City.

Recently, the Center for the Study of Social Policy hosted a webinar, Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex, as a platform for Dank to share her findings with the field. The webinar highlighted interviews with youth who shared personal stories of engaging in survival sex. These youth stories share common themes of social and familial discrimination and rejection, familial dysfunction and poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse and exploitation and emotional and mental trauma.

Dank’s research found that youth involved in survival sex faced significant challenges in stable housing and hunger and as a result, were introduced to - and became involved in - survival sex through friends and peers. In exchange for engaging in sexual activities, 88 percent of youth received money, 29 percent received shelter, and 19 percent received food. These findings highlight a gap in services and supports, including housing, mental health, and employment for LGBTQ youth who are pushed out of their homes due to rejection, suffered other means of trauma, and find themselves living on the streets.

In order to support this community of youth, the report highlights recommendations to ensure and support the safety of homeless LGBTQ youth:

1. Develop accessible street-based and comprehensive drop-in services and peer-led outreach
2. Improve safe and supportive short-term shelter, long-term affordable housing, and family-based placement options subject to periodic review
3. Create a safe and supportive housing and placement protocols specific to transgender and gender non-conforming individuals
4. Broaden access to and improve gender-affirming health care
5. Adopt nondiscrimination, confidentiality, and complaint procedures in shelters, programs, and out-of-home placements
6. Develop living-wage employment opportunities
7. Improve food security among LGBTQ youth
8. Design policy training curricula to improve relationships with LGBTQ youth and decrease profiling, harassment, and abuse

To view an archived version of the webinar, click here.

For more information on how to support LGBTQ youth, please visit CSSP’s getREAL section on our website.