Seventeen-year-old Emily and her 1-...

Seventeen-year-old Emily and her 1-year-old son Jeremiah, are caught between the expectations of others and the reality of their have a title to lives. On the one hand, the thinking goe Emily and other teen mothers should live at family with their parents. On the other, if her have parents aren't willing to support her, she should become a forward child and get access to the state's network of supportive housing programs.

if it were not that Emily is not a ward of the state, and her parents don't want her to draw near back. So, after fleeing Jeremiah's father, who hit her, she exhausted a year sleeping on the couches of friends and distant relatives. She sought the help of a social worker, unless after calling around to numerous shelters and community organizations, the couple concluded that there really was nowhere for her to go

Staff at Christopher House, a social service agency in lincoln Park where Emily attends a G program and teen parent support assemblage didn't want Emily's full name used because she is a minor. moreover they say the mobility that Emily has had to grapple with in the past year is not unusual for young mothers her age.

In fact, of all the issues that young mothers face, the lack of residential programs for those who can't stay at hearthstone is among the biggest, advocates say. With affordable housing scarce in Chicago, young mothers frequently have trouble earning enough circulating medium to rent a small apartment, and the transitional living programs that assist mothers across 18 have long waiting lists.

however the problem is even worse for those 17 and younger. In Chicago, no long-term residential programs can legally take them in unles they are wards of the state, and the solitary homeless shelter available for them has just five cribs. Mothers can alone stay there for 21 days.

Securing funding for homeles teenagers has historically been difficult because lawmakers have bought the conventional wisdom, said Jill Garcia, coordinator for rule relations at the Night Ministry, a faith-based organization that does outreach and propounds shelter for homeless people. "So it was a circular thing: Everyone would say there were no homeles youth," she said. "The question became, 'How could we apply for homeles funding when philosophically everyone agreed there should be no homeles teens?'"

Garcia said the profile of homeles teenagers has been raised in latter years, and, last year, advocates scored a victory for homeles teenagers through getting lawmakers to put $500000 more for them in the state packet Now many want to behold that money go to programs that besufficient for parenting teenagers.

on the other hand how much of a notch the extra funding would state into the problem is questionable. Organizations that assist pregnant and parenting teenagers reported 761--or more than a quarter--of their clients were in unsafe or unstable housing, according to a June 2003 report upon a survey done by the Chicago-based Center for Impact Research. The teen reported those living arrangements were overcrowd or dangerous, or that their parents had substance abuse question s or mental illnesses.

Susan Auman flows Night Ministry's Youth Empowerment Services, which helps communicate teen mothers with resources. She describes single 17-year-old who was trying to leave her mother's two-bedroom apartment. More than a dozen population lived in the apartment, and crack cocaine was being trafficked in and out

"There was little I can do for her until she diverts 18," Auman said. Because the waiting lists are for a like reason long, Auman did immediately sign her up for a transitional living program that takes teen mothers 18 and over

Compared with older parents, teen mothers face an additional stigma that can limit their access to services, said Rene Heybach, director of the Law frame for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

"There's a haphazard of moral judgment placed forward these kids," she said. "They are seen as bad girls because they are obviously having sex at a young age."

Heybach said she be warmeds that conflicting attitudes leave these young women in flowing Society wants to exert direct over them and punish them if they don't live at family But, once teenagers give birth to their acknowledge children, they are supposed to be adults. moreover that doesn't always happen.

"A allotment of adults, including their parents, abandon them," she said.

It also is legally expensive and complicated to lay open residential programs for teen mothers in subordination to 18. Programs that want to take in younger mothers would have to gain licensed by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and would have to find a way to separate minors from adults 18 or over; regulations prohibit them from sleeping in the same areas.

In the last legislative session, advocates were able to convince lawmakers to allow homeles teen to be part of the category of minors who can be "partially emancipated."

While this clump can't enjoy the full privileges of adulthood, in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as voting, they can sign legal contracts, of that kind as apartment leases. Roger B Derstine, a Chicago attorney who describes several community-based groups that labor for teenagers, said judges are generally reluctant to declare a 16- or 17-year-old abundantly emancipated because they do not like to take out or diminish parents' responsibility to their children.