And once they leave foster care, often they fail, finding themselves
couch-surfing, homeless, incarcerated or pregnant, McKnight said, because although some services do exist now, there are not enough to help all of the young adults aging out of foster care.
South Korea's Jeon Go-woon's Microhabitat portrays a resourceful,
couch-surfing woman, while Japan's Okita Shuichi's Mori, the Artist's Habit is a comic look at a 30-year recluse.
However, the singer - who himself has spent time
couch-surfing and even slept on the streets a couple of times before his rise to fame - angrily slammed the claims.
After all, these generations believe in sharing everything -- renting homes instead of buying, and choosing
couch-surfing over hotel stays.
More than 4% of adolescents and 10% of young adults nationwide were either
couch-surfing or living on the street, in cars, or at shelters at some point in the last year, according to a recent study by the University of Chicago.
The number didn't include those who were
couch-surfing, and didn't try to determine the number of children who were homeless.
Couch-surfing students may have roofs over their heads, but they are still defined as homeless under the federal McKenney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, signed by President Reagan in 1987 and revised several times since.
What they found wasn't exactly startling, though as Walbourne reported, it was and is "heartbreaking." Soldiers borrowing and
couch-surfing while waiting months for their veterans benefits to start after their military pay is cut off upon discharge; homelessness, substance abuse, and suicide amongst those caught in a bureaucratic quagmire while pencil pushers at two different ministries sort through their filing cabinets; and endless empty promises to fix the problem, leaving the solution more "a concept, not a reality" after successive governments with a penchant for talk over action.
He had been
couch-surfing across Canada on an eight-week trip around North America.
"When my time ran out there I used a
couch-surfing app and just slept in the homes of random people.
They could be living with pimps or drug dealers or both, or they could just be
couch-surfing."