Social workers and homeless advocates say it is common among young people on the Eastern Shore in Maryland to age out of the foster care system and have to fend for themselves, often becoming homeless. There are few resources to help them transition out of foster care to living on their own. Thus, there is a growing trend of homeless youth considered too old to be wards of the state, but who are not quite ready to live on their own.
A group of social services agencies in Maryland, led by The Institute for Innovation & Implementation at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, is using a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to tackle the issue in five Eastern Shore counties. In particular, they are working to combat the rural homelessness among young people in the Eastern Shore, which is different from the homelessness found in urban areas like Baltimore. Many homeless young people in rural areas will "couch surf" or bounce from one place to another (often with friends and family), making it difficult to determine the true number of homeless youth in the area. According to one social worker, many people on the Eastern Shore do not realize that the area has a serious homeless issue because there is not a large "street homeless" population that people can see. Homeless youth in rural areas like the Eastern Shore often do not have access to resources like food banks and other social services organizations like those available in Baltimore.