Recommendations for the Reauthorization of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act

The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act is the leading federal legislation focused on ending youth homelessness by funding emergency shelter tied to family reunification, street-based outreach, and transitional housing. The Act is scheduled for reauthorization in 2008 which offers an opportunity to strengthen federal policy. Read More >

Missing and Exploited Children: Background, Policies, and Issues

Beginning in the late 1970s, highly-publicized cases of children abducted,
sexually abused, and often murdered prompted policymakers and child advocates to declare a missing children problem. At that time, about one and a half million children were reported missing annually. A more recent count, in 1999, estimated that approximately 1.3 million children went missing from their caretakers that year due to a family or non-family abduction, running away or being forced to leave home, becoming lost or injured, or for benign reasons, such as a miscommunication about schedules. About half of all missing children ran away or were forced to leave home, and nearly all missing children were returned to their homes. The number of children who are sexually exploited — defined broadly to include a continuum of abuse, from child pornography to commercial sexual exploitation — is unknown. Verified incidents of child sexual exploitation that were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) from 1998 to 2006 exceeded 180,000. Read More >

Fact Checker: Youth Homelessness

Youth homelessness is disturbingly common. Although the prevalence of youth homelessness is difficult to measure, researchers estimate that about 5 to 7.7 percent of youth experience homelessness each year. Read More >

Vulnerable Youth: Background and Policies

The majority of young people in the United States grow up healthy and safe in their communities. Most of those of school age live with parents who provide for their well-being, and they attend schools that prepare them for advanced education or vocational training, and ultimately, self-sufficiency. Many youth also receive assistance from their families during the transition to adulthood. During this period, young adults cycle between attending school, living independently, and staying with their families. On average, parents give their children an estimated $38,000, or about $2,200 a year, while they are between the ages of 18 and 34 to supplement wages, pay for college tuition, and assist with down payments on a house, among other types of financial help. Even with this assistance, the current move from adolescence to adulthood has become longer and increasingly complex. Read More >

Juvenile Justice: Legislative History and Current Legislative Issues

Juvenile justice in the United States has predominantly been the province of the states and their localities. The first juvenile court in America was founded in 1899 in Cook County, Illinois, and, by 1925, all but two states had established juvenile court systems. The mission of these early juvenile courts was to rehabilitate young delinquents instead of just punishing them for their crimes; in practice, this led to marked procedural and substantive differences between the adult and juvenile court
systems in the states, including a focus on the offenders and not the offenses, and rehabilitation instead of punishment. Read More >

America's Homeless Youth: Recommendations to Congress on the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act

This issue brief provides up to date information on the FY 2008 appropriations for runaway and homeless youth programs. Read More >

Fundemental Issues to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness

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. The brief also features the Ten Essentials Your Community Needs to Prevent and End Youth Homelessness, designed by the National Partnership to End Youth Homelessness.

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Ten Essentials to Ending Youth Homelessness

This toolkit provides a brief overview of the ten essentials strategies for ending youth homelessness in your community. Read More >

Runaway and Homeless Youth: Demographics, Programs, and Emerging Issues

There is no single definition of the term “runaway youth” or “homeless youth.” However, both groups of youth share the risk of not having adequate shelter and other provisions, and may engage in harmful behaviors while away from a permanent home. The precise number of homeless and runaway youth is unknown due to their residential mobility and overlap among the populations. Determining the number of these youth is further complicated by the lack of a standardized methodology for counting the population and inconsistent definitions of what it means to be homeless or a runaway. Estimates of the homeless youth population range from 52,000 to over one million. Estimates of runaway youth — including “thrownaway” youth — are between 1 million and 1.7 million. Read More >