YP2F Podcast Ep 46 ft. Amanda Nicholson

Navigating Youth Homelessness: Advocacy, Dignity, and Rebuilding Systems Ft. Amanda Nicholson

Host Tonny St. James sits down with artist, organizer, and consultant Amanda Nicholson to unpack the realities of navigating homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic and the urgent need to rebuild systems with dignity at the center.

Amanda shares her journey from housing instability during high school to experiencing homelessness in San Diego and Los Angeles, and how those lived experiences fueled her transition into grassroots advocacy, workshops, and consulting. Together, they explore the failures of housing programs that label people “service resistant,” the challenges of navigating dehumanizing social systems, and the radical possibility of harm reduction, rest, and direct cash support as tools for true transformation.

This conversation is as much about survival as it is about vision: what it means to claim humanity in spaces that erase it, and how art, organizing, and unapologetic truth-telling can spark systemic change.

Go deeper on topics discussed in our latest episode

• Amanda joins podcast host Theo Henderson of WeTheUnhoused Podcast for a conversation titled Undoing the harm: An Overdue Discussion on Harm Reduction.
• Navigating homelessness during COVID-19
• How Project Roomkey closures exposed systemic cruelty
• Why “service resistant” is a damaging and false narrative
• The role of art, consulting, and research in shaping advocacy
• Harm reduction principles beyond substance use: dignity, rest, and autonomy
• Tokenization vs. authentic inclusion of lived experience voices
• Rebuilding social safety nets from scratch instead of reforming broken systems
• The promise of direct cash transfers and affordable housing

Amanda Nicholson was a 2024 Creative in Residence through Painted Brain's PB Arthaus. By the age of 18, Amanda completed two residencies through the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Teens program in New York. She is a modern day griot who combines lived experience with meticulous research to serve up hard truths that are often concealed. Through rigorous investigation and raw storytelling, Nicholson strips away the layers of duplicity surrounding complex social issues.