The pandemic has disrupted all of our lives, but few more than young people who struggle to secure stable housing.

Teens without a permanent home, who in normal times struggle to stay safe and warm at night, to stay in school, to navigate society without a parent to guide them, struggled even more during the pandemic.

Typically reluctant to reveal their homeless condition to classmates and authorities, they tend to live under the radar. They put up the best front they are able of living a normal life, when their lives are anything but normal. They travel a roundabout of sleeping places: friends’ sofas, shelters, cars, wherever.

Services exist to help these youngsters. Like Pete’s Place, a voluntary shelter in Traverse City, behind Goodwill Inn on Keystone Road. It provides food, counseling, skills-building and a bed to sleep in for runaway or homeless youth between the ages of 12 and 17 in Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim and Kalkaska counties.

In typical times, three or four kids would be in the shelter at any particular time, watching TV, working on the computer in the common space or spending time in counseling sessions.

But the numbers are down in these atypical times. Last week, there was only a single teen taking advantage of the services at Pete’s Place.

That doesn’t suggest the number of teens in need has gone down.

“We don’t think that means there’s less homeless youth,” said Tara DeGroot, youth outreach manager/community systems liaison with Goodwill Northern Michigan. “We just think that the systems that used to report homelessness, the interactions they had with social workers, with school counselors, dropped off.”

The swing to virtual classes and the limitations on in-person activities translated into fewer interactions at which at-risk youth could be identified and contacted. Less contact also means newly homeless teens have less opportunity to learn about the existence of services. Some teens may have been forced by the pandemic to work instead of go to school.

“I definitely know last year, we lost some kids,” said Abby Jordan, homeless liaison with the Students in Transition Empowerment Program (STEP) at Traverse City Area Public Schools.

STEP provides support to K-12 students who lack adequate or consistent housing. It identified about 100 fewer students during the 2020-21 school year than it had in previous years.

It is unclear if those teens moved elsewhere, dropped out of school or if they simply stopped seeking help during the pandemic.

Goodwill, STEP, the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness and the Northern Michigan Community Action Agency continue their work to identify and help young people. We applaud their efforts.

Those interested in seeking shelter at Pete’s Place can call its 24-hour crisis hotline (231-922-4800) and speak to the on-call worker about their situation.

For more information on programs and services in the area for people experiencing homelessness, go to endhomelessnessnmi.org or call the Coalition’s 24-hour call center: 1-844-900-0500.