of homeless youth; the number is commonly thought to be somewhere between 1.3 and 2 million. These youth have higher rates of mental health disorders, suicide, and drug/alcohol dependency due to the high amount of stressors in their lives. Spirituality is one of many coping mechanisms homeless youth employ in order to manage life on the streets as well as techniques such as avoidant coping, use of alcohol, interpersonal skills, problem-focused coping and self-reliance. Spirituality as a coping mechanism often serves as positive force in the lives of homeless youth. Kidd (2003) surveyed 80 street youth on the topic of coping and found that spirituality gave meaning to suffering, enabling the youth to process negative emotion and retain some hope. In interviews done by Lindsey et al. (2000), spirituality served as a resource to youth and empowered those engaged in spirituality to redirect their lives in a healthy manner. A theme across multiple studies the coping mechanisms of homeless youth is that their beliefs act as a source of strength and comfort; many attribute their ability to survive to the direct intervention of a higher power or to their faith. One individual in a group discussion conducted by Bender (2007) commented on his engagement with the divine as a source of comfort and survival saying, "The man upstairs is what helps me. Just knowing that he's there. There may be times when I feel like he's not there, but he's helping me out slowly." These positive effects of spirituality appear largely in qualitative work, meaning that the youth themselves associate spirituality with improved coping and better mental health. Youth who do not engage in spirituality thus do not use it as a coping mechanism and do not comment on it. There are no examples of negative religious coping among the youth in the studies cited. However, a quantitative study conducted by Kidd and Carroll revealed that spirituality was not associated with a lower suicide risk in homeless youth. Men For homeless men, specifically those suffering from a substance abuse problem or who are in crisis, spirituality often serves as a positive coping mechanism, giving meaning to life and is tied to a sense of peace. However, positive spiritual coping lessens in its effectiveness the longer someone is homeless and is not as effective for homeless men with mental health problems as for those who are alcohol/drug dependent or in crisis.