Youth

About 50,000 youth in the U.S. sleep on the street for six months or more. Homeless youth face unique developmental challenges and vulnerability.

During a year there are approximately 550,000 unaccompanied, single youth and young adults up to age 24 who experience a homelessness episode of longer than one week. Approximately 380,000 of those youth are under the age of 18.  While these are rough estimate made using imperfect information, it is a good starting point from which communities and the federal government can begin to scale resources and interventions.  To learn more about the Alliance’s analysis of the available data on homeless youth, read An Emerging Framework for Ending Unaccompanied Youth Homelessness. 

While there are evaluations of programs to assist homeless youth, there is very little research comparing interventions and none examining how different interventions address the issues of the different subpopulations. Nevertheless, communities have reasonable evidence to increase support to family intervention efforts and to target existing housing programs to youth with the highest needs.

Ultimately, better, more accurate data must be collected on the number of youth that experience homelessness as well as the effective interventions to end homelessness for youth. Currently, only approximately 50,000 youth per year are served by targeted homeless youth programs. Clearly this falls far short of demand and more resources are needed to respond adequately to youth homelessness and communities should include youth in their long-term strategic planning efforts to end homelessness for all populations.  Communities should work to:

  • Improve the crisis response.
  • Prioritize family reunification or support as the initial intervention.
  • Expand the reach and effectiveness of transitional living programs.
  • Improve data collection and performance measurement.
  • Collaborate with mainstream systems such as child welfare and juvenile justice.

 

Spotlight

Solutions Brief | October 23, 2012
Rural youth experiencing homelessness often face with severely limited resources compared to their urban counterparts. In areas where services are offered, providers are typically underfunded and youth lack transportation options to access them. This brief includes an overview of the host homes model that can be tailored to meet local needs, and service provider strategies for outreach to youth.
Federal Policy Brief | September 6, 2012
This federal policy brief describes child welfare’s National Youth in Transition Database, which collects data on the services provided to youth aging out of foster care as well as the reporting of outcomes for youth who have exited, which includes homelessness. The survey is first administered at age 17, and then again when the youth is 19 and 21.
Report | July 25, 2012
This report provides a discussion and recommendations for moving Los Angeles down a path toward more effective services for youth experiencing homelessness. The purpose of the L.A. convening, which was co-hosted by the Alliance and the California Homeless Youth Project, was to have stakeholders engage in a focused discussion about what is and what is not working in serving youth. The discussion touched on four strategies: prevention, emergency response, housing, and support services.
Best Practice | July 3, 2012
Youth Services of Tulsa (YST), which is located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a nonprofit agency that provides a continuum of diverse programs and services to youth ages 12-17 (and their families). YST delivers family intervention services such as family reunification and family connecting to support the strengthening of families for runaway and homeless youth, and those at-risk.
Federal Policy Brief | April 9, 2012
To prevent and end homelessness the field of homeless providers, advocates and researchers would greatly benefit from having only one management information system for the collection and reporting of outcomes on the size and characteristics of the homeless population.
Report | March 6, 2012
This brief provides an examination of data on homeless youth, estimates of the number of homeless youth across a typology, and gives a summary of promising strategies to more effectively end youth homelessness.

Library Resources

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Advocacy Resource | October 26, 2012
This policy brief illustrates the historical funding of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) since fiscal year (FY) 2001. The brief beaks down the historical funding of each of the three programs. Currently, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) is funded at $115 million. RHYA consists of three programs dedicated to serving youth experiencing homelessness: street outreach, basic center, and transitional living programs.
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Webinar | July 11, 2012
On Wednesday, July 11, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET, the Alliance hosted a webinar that focused on host homes and other alternatives to physical shelter beds, as well as ways of improving the responsiveness of the adult crisis system to the needs of youth in crisis.
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Solutions Brief | July 2, 2012
The transgender community makes up less than half a percent of the American population but accounts for up to five percent of the homeless youth population. This one-page brief provides guidance for service providers seeking to competently meet the needs of this vulnerable population.
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Webinar | June 18, 2012
This webinar discusses the importance of family intervention; the practices used to reunify and connect homeless youth with their parents; and a model designed to decrease risky behaviors.
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Best Practice | November 15, 2011
New York City is working to prevent and end homelessness for LGBTQ homeless youth. Recognizing that most runaway and homeless LGBTQ youth will return to their family, New York City is funding two community-based organizations to strengthen youth’s connections to families to prevent and rapidly end their homelessness.
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Solutions Brief | November 15, 2011
It is commonly estimated that 100,000 children are victims of commercial sexual exploitation each year. In this brief, the Alliance examines the relationship between commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth homelessness.
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Report | October 5, 2011
Annual prevalence estimates for homeless youth in the U.S. have ranged as high as 1.6 million among those aged 13-17 (Ringwalt et al., 1998). In this report, researchers present a history of typologies of homeless youth and also suggest recommendations for further research on this population.
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Best Practice | June 17, 2011
First Place for Youth is a nonprofit organization that serves youth who are preparing to age out of foster care or who have recently aged out of care and are experiencing a housing crisis.
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Webinar | December 14, 2010
This webinar offers an overview of Hennepin County's youth goals and implementation.
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Toolkits | October 20, 2010
The Alliance and the National Network for Youth recommend that communities fully include homeless youth in their local January 2011 Point in Time (PIT) counts by using the strategies in this brief.
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Solutions Brief | October 30, 2009
Homeless youth surviving day-to-day on the streets are at constant risk of solicitation and sexual exploitation. Homeless youth are far more likely to be physically and sexually victimized than their peers who are housed, and they are more likely to experience repeated episodes of sexual assaults. This publication reviews the research and practice implications for community-based services.
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Solutions Brief | April 10, 2009
This two-page brief provides an overview of the prevalence and experience of LGBTQ youth, causal factors, and risks to LGBTQ youth while homeless.
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Solutions Brief | August 10, 2006
This issue brief reviews the key issues surrounding youth homelessness, including causes and characteristics of homeless youth. It also contains an introductory explanation of the youth housing continuum, a development model for stable and supportive housing for young adults and policy implications regarding youth homelessness.