Homeless young people are victims of crime at rates that society would consider unacceptable for any other group, according to a new report by researchers at York University and the University of Guelph. The report, Surviving Crime and Violence: Street Youth and Victimization in Toronto, highlights the degree to which it is street youth themselves − often perceived as delinquent and dangerous − who are vulnerable to crime and violence. “The very people we are taught to fear are the ones who are most at risk,” said Professor Stephen Gaetz, associate dean of research and field development in York’s Faculty of Education. ”More than 76 per cent of the homeless youth we surveyed said they had been victims of violent crime in the past year, and almost three-quarters of them reported multiple incidents.” In comparison, about 40 per cent of young people in the general population reported that they had been victimized in the previous year, when the Canadian General Social Survey last asked them about it in 1999 − and they experienced mostly property crime. Gaetz and University of Guelph Professor Bill O’Grady interviewed 244 homeless youths across Toronto last year about life on the streets.