Youth Experiencing Homelessness

Youth Experiencing Homelessness

Marge F. Martin, Director of PD&R’s Policy Development Division.

Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness set a goal to end homelessness among youth by 2020. The federal government has been working over the past several years to begin implementing this plan. Yet, creating a federal strategy that adequately addresses youth experiencing homelessness is still in its infancy stages, given the limited information on how many youth face homelessness and which interventions are most effective. These challenges mean we need to systematically reassess our efforts to end youth homelessness based on what we are learning from the incremental steps we have taken.

In April, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies held a hearing to examine current efforts and encourage progress in ending youth homelessness. Chairwoman Collins kicked off the hearing by summarizing the limited data on unaccompanied youth and emphasizing the need for federal agencies to collaborate. Chairwoman Collins also outlined programs in Maine that have successfully served and housed youth by connecting them to service providers. Other Senators chimed in stressing the difficulty of counting homeless youth and the insufficient knowledge of effective strategies to serve them.

A diverse panel of experts, including the 1980’s pop icon and passionate advocate Cyndi Lauper, helped shed light on the problem of youth homelessness with their testimony. Cyndi co-founded the True Colors Fund, named after her 1986 album that became an anthem for the LGBT community, with a mission “to end homelessness among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, creating a world in which young people can be their true selves.” Cyndi also added context from her experience overcoming homelessness as a youth. Deborah Shore, Director of Sasha Bruce Youthwork in Washington, DC, presented a provider and national advocacy perspective. The panel’s testimony was grounded by a wonderful young woman from Maine who shared her journey of transitioning from a girl forced out of her home into homelessness at age 17 to a college graduate and aspiring teacher.

In addition, Jennifer Ho, Secretary Castro’s Senior Advisor on Housing and Services, eloquently framed HUD’s efforts to end youth homelessness. Jennifer began by highlighting the federal government’s collective efforts to pursue the two strategies presented in the Framework to End Youth Homelessness: (1) achieving better national data, and (2) improving programs and systems. To achieve better data, HUD is using lessons learned from Youth Count! sites that provide guidance to communities to better include youth in point-in-time counts. In partnership with HHS, HUD is working to integrate data collection systems and promote system-level approaches to enhance capacity and improve how local Continuums of Care respond to youth homelessness. Most notably, HUD is working with two communities to conduct a pilot project on preventing homelessness among LGBT youth.

Jennifer then turned to the challenges we have ahead of us, noting that HUD will use targeted homelessness funding and Housing Choice Vouchers to provide communities with incentives to make ending homelessness a top priority. Jennifer further emphasized that we have more research and evaluation to do in order to better understand what interventions are best suited for youth.

While significant progress has been made toward ending homelessness among Veterans and people experiencing chronic homelessness, ending homelessness among youth is just as urgent, but perhaps requires a different approach. Panelists and the Senators agreed that the most effective housing solutions for youth need to address the fundamental problems they face, including the lack of a supportive family environment. This need for tailored solutions was recently echoed by youth service providers and researchers who gathered at the 2015 National Alliance to End Homelessness Annual Conference. The unique developmental and financial position of young people affects which types of housing models prove as effective complements to supportive services. From a developmental perspective, some providers have found that youth prefer to concentrate on meeting educational, employment, or substance abuse goals before transitioning to the responsibilities of independent living. In these cases, clustered housing with concentrated supportive services may be more effective tools than scattered site housing models. Likewise, practitioners highlighted the need for youth to develop skills for roommate living, particularly in cities with high housing costs that may preclude most young adults (previously homeless or not) from being able to afford their own apartments, prior to leaving supportive housing environments. Other youth already raising families of their own may be better served or prefer housing with on-site (subsidized) child care and case management services.

As we have done with efforts to end chronic and Veteran homelessness, we will need to continue to refine our strategies based on lessons learned along the way and reaffirm our commitment to the safety of and support for every young person. In April, Cyndi summed up this issue with an emotional appeal to parents:

“When you pray at night, don’t ask God to change your child, ask God to change your heart.”