“In most communities around the country, congregate shelters are the only option available for people experiencing homelessness and in need of immediate housing. And there are often few or no options that are dedicated to youth (under the age of 18) and young adults.

Many of these congregate shelters have harmful and restrictive policies rooted in racism, homophobia, and transphobia that make them an unsafe option, an option of last resort, or just completely keep many Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Queer youth, particularly Trans youth, locked out. These barriers include policies that restrict safe entry or retention of shelter due to drug or alcohol use, immigration status, and/or gender identity.

There is also not a fully funded and organized prevention system that can serve youth or young adults and their families to ensure that those h who want to remain with family (chosen and birth) have the resources and services needed to reunify or stay together, particularly for LGBTQ youth experiencing rejection and family conflict. These services are often fragmented across the child welfare system, runaway and homeless youth (RHY) providers, and other nonprofits serving youth and families.

There is also a lack of connection between family homelessness services and youth homelessnes services which leads to older teenage youth in families being separated from the rest of their family experiencing homelessness in order to access services.

For these reasons, many youth and young adults are forced to choose to live unsheltered and in unsafe doubled-up situations where they are exposed to exploitation and violence.

For many years youth who have experienced homelessness have told us that shelters cause harm and that we must create new crisis housing options that offer a safe and dignified way to receive immediate housing and services, including the services needed to return to or remain with birth and chosen families.
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“To mitigate the harm of large congregate shelters and offer more crisis housing options to youth and young adults, advocates have pushed several reform efforts. Although these reforms have led to thousands of more youth gaining access to immediate housing while in crisis, the efforts often still rely on congregate shelter options that lack privacy and safety and are still not built to scale to ensure all young people have access to the option of their choice.


Examples of crisis housing reform efforts:

Shelters that exclusively serve youth and young adults, offer more comprehensive services and are operated using housing first principles, including having low or no barriers to entry and to retaining the shelter bed. Although these options offer a less harmful alternative, there are still few of these shelters in existence around the country and even those with the best Housing First policies still end up not being welcoming places for all youth, particularly Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Queer youth.

Emergency transitional housing that offers more private space, similar to an independent apartment or private room in a house, and moves young people quickly to safe and stable housing. Although this option offers young people crisis housing with more privacy and dignity, there are far too few units to meet the need, leading to eligibility and prioritization requirements that leave many young people locked out of these options.

There are Basic Center Programs (BCPs) around the country that have implemented reforms to return to the original intent of the program - supporting youth and their families to remain together and reunify with supports and utilizing small, home-like shelters as a last resort. These reforms include offering host homes of a youth’s choice, more robust and longer term family supports, and youth-driven case planning.

Host home programs that recruit volunteer hosts that can offer crisis housing options for youth and young adults in their homes. This has proved to be a successful option for some youth but many others have rejected the idea because it takes away their agency to live with someone that is known and trusted. ”

“Recently there has been an attempt to push the system to the edge of transformation by giving youth the resources they need to seek crisis housing of their choice with known kin and to create a more coordinated and flexible prevention system for youth under the age of 18.

Example of an effort that has pushed crisis housing to the transformative edge:

Direct financial assistance and optional supportive services to a young person’s kinship network to support emergency housing with kin of their choice.
Several communities are implementing this strategy through a federal grant program called the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) and others with the support of Point Source Youth. This effort is helping to re-imagine how we can support youth and give them autonomy in deciding how and where they seek crisis housing. However, these efforts still operate with restrictions due to the regulations of the system and have not been scaled up to meet the needs of any youth who needs the support.

Coordinated and flexible family-based services for youth under the age of 18 through the Youth Homlessness Demonstration Program (YHDP). Several communities have coordinated resources and services across child welfare, juvenile justice, RHY, and CoC programs to ensure that youth under the age of 18 and their families have access to services and supports that can assist with avoiding shelter stays, foster care placements, and detention. These services are youth driven and offer support to birth and chosen families.
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“As we imagine a new way to offer immediate crisis housing options, we must push for true transformation, most of which have never been attempted or have not been fully implemented by the homelessness response system.

Transformative efforts needed for crisis housing:
Direct cash assistance to young people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, coupled with optional housing navigation assistance, with no conditions, to meet their emergency housing needs as they choose. There is currently a pilot project running through the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall in partnership with Point Source Youth.

Immediate access to an emergency housing voucher for any youth that needs emergency housing without eligibility restrictions or prioritization factors, and at a value that can be utilized on the private market for hotel/motel or temporary apartments.

A robust and coordinated youth and family prevention system that pulls in resources from a transformed housing, child welfare, legal, and economic justice system to ensure that any youth and their family (birth and chosen) has a single point of access to the economic resources and supportive services needed to reunify or remain together in order to avoid the need for crisis housing. The system must respond to the needs of LGBTQ youth and their families to navigate family rejection and conflict and it must be able to serve youth and their families as they present in order to end family separation in families experiencing homelessness with older teenagers. ”

“There are no longer shelters and any young person who needs it has immediate (same day) access to emergency housing of their choice that is safe, affirming, and leads to long-term housing within 30 days. ”