If you find yourself experiencing homelessness or housing instability, it can feel isolating, like you’re facing hard things alone without support: without family. Even if you feel orphaned right now, that doesn’t mean you can’t work towards creating your own family.
After being disconnected from families of origin, many homeless youth begin to create their own families, often referred to as “chosen families” or “street families.” The idea of a chosen family isn’t exclusive to people who have experienced homelessness or housing instability; however, it is a common occurrence for our community because of the ways in which for many of us have needed to rethink and reevaluate what family means.
If our families of origin have been absent or problematic in our lives, it only makes sense to make our own families. As homeless or formerly homeless youth, many of us have experienced family estrangement or rejection, which directly led to our experience of homelessness. The families we come from have often been unsafe and unsupportive, so we’ve had to look elsewhere for the kind of supportive structures that many people take for granted they will receive from their biological families.
For many of us, the families we choose and create provide the kind of love, connection, and support we’ve never had with our families of origin.
Why Chosen Families Are Important
One of my favorite quotes about the concept of chosen family comes from a viral Tumblr post external link, opens in a new tab in this post the creator ominous-ellipsesexternal link, opens in a new tab says:
FOUND family??? you think I just found them like this??? Babes, this is a FORGED family. Me & the bros were scrap metal in a junkyard (very valuable, very sharp, very dangerous, uncared for) and we GOT IN THE FUCKING FIRE TOGETHER. WE did this. we said I AM NOT LEAVING YOU and melted into each other for better or for worse (it’s for better) and we are A FUNCTIONAL UNIT now. DO NOT SEPARATE. BATTERIES FUCKING INCLUDED. FOUND family my ass, we built this non-nuclear family unit from the ground up, don’t devalue this!!! it was and will be a labor of love!!!
When I think about the power of created family, this quote resonates so deeply for me because it beautifully captures the ways in which creating family isn’t accidental, it involves intentional claiming and joining of lives. My chosen family has been about the universe bringing me together with people who have similar experiences, similar perspectives and world views, who come from similar pasts and traumas and joys, to creating a connection that is deeper than friendship. When I found my way to a drop-in center for homeless youth, not only did I, for the first time, meet other youth experiencing homelessness, but I also began to meet their families, the ones they had chosen and created. It was here that I learned that family is something that can be built.
There are many life lessons I’ve gained from my experience of having become homeless as a teenager. Most importantly, at the top of the list, has been the idea that family isn’t something we are born into, it’s something that we intentionally create, often with other homeless youth.
The families we create provide us with the safety, affirmations, care, sense of belonging, emotional support, and long-term stability that we don’t get from our families of origin. In my mind, this is the definition of what any good and healthy family is, regardless of if they are your family of origin, or a chosen family.
Creating Chosen Families
Chosen families can take many forms, from loosely formed friend groups to highly structured connections with chosen titles of identity like “mom” or “dad.” Chosen families are often created with people who have had or are having similar lived experiences, so it’s very common for homeless youth to create families with other homeless youth, but it can be hard to know where to begin when trying to create a family.
Want to create a chosen family of your own? It’s okay to go slowly when it comes to creating a chosen family. As with any close relationship, it’s important to make sure the people you are bonding and sharing support with are people you trust and can build trust with. Many of us who have experienced homelessness or severed ties with our families of origin understandably struggle with trust, or need to take extra time to build trust in someone new. For us, it’s an important survival skill. Not everyone you meet, even other youth who are experiencing homelessness, or who have similar histories, are going to be trustworthy.
Take your time to get to know people before determining if you trust them, and to figure out what kind of relationship you want to develop with them. One of the best and most overwhelming parts of creating a chosen family is that there is no blueprint for how to do this “right.” You are creating the kind of family that you want and need to have in your life. If the chosen family is important to you, talk with your close friends and community about what kind of community connection you are looking for. Open and honest communication about wants, needs, boundaries, and expectations are as important in a chosen family as they are in any other sort of relationship you might find yourself forming. While building a chosen family, find ways to show up and invest in your community. Spend quality time with your friends and community. Going to events and meeting other people is a great way to form connections with people who you might
Why Chosen Family Support Is So Important
Chosen family is first and foremost vital because, in many instances, it provides homeless youth with social and emotional support and connection that we lack from the families that raised us. This may take the form of unconditional (or nearly) unconditional acceptance and support, which can be healing and validating if you’ve been rejected by your family of origin. Chosen families can play an important role in validating our identities, and who we are, something that can be especially important for homeless LGBTQ+ youth. The chosen family relationship and connection also provides youth experiencing homelessness, or formerly homeless youth with emotional stability and connection something many of us are often lacking access to. Chosen families may choose to spend important days such as birthdays and holidays together, forming new traditions and ensuring that everyone is receiving the kind of support that they need while navigating daily life.
While emotional support and connection is a primary way that chosen families often show up for each other, tangible support around meeting basic needs, including food, and shelter may also be part of the kind of physical safety and support that chosen families can provide to current and formerly homeless youth. As you are building trust and developing your chosen family, talk with each other about what kind of support everyone needs, wants and feels comfortable providing. Sharing resources about safe places to stay can be an especially important and tangible way that chosen families can show up and provide necessary support during times of housing instability or crisis.
Love and Loss with Chosen Family
One of the hardest lessons I learned as a formerly homeless youth is that the chosen families I created weren’t necessarily going to last forever. Just like relationships with biological families — and members of those families — can end or be severed, the same is true with chosen family. While some members of my chosen family have been long-term connections that I believe with my whole heart will last the remainder of our lives, other chosen family members have become more distant or drifted out of my life completely. Sometimes this is because our lives have naturally grown in different directions, and other times because of some kind of conflict that couldn’t be resolved. At the end of the day, we are all people doing the best we can, forming relationships and connections with each other. Open and honest communication among chosen family members can help to reduce the potential for conflict and misunderstandings in the future.
Part of letting people get close to us also means the possibility that we will lose them. This can happen because lives drift apart or because of death. Unfortunately violence is especially common for people experiencing homelessness, and this can impact our families as we go through grief. However even if we lose people, it doesn’t mean we lose their memories of the love that we have shared.
Creating a chosen family, and the shape and format of your own chosen family, is a personal decision and one that can and probably will shift and evolve over time. Not every homeless teen will feel called to creating a chosen family, but if you are homeless, or have been marginally housed and are disconnected or estranged from your family of origin creating a chosen family can help provide you with an ongoing support system and community. After all, we all benefit from having people to care for, and who care about us actively involved in our lives.
