Funding will support up to 25 communities in developing and implementing a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is making $72 million in Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) funding available to up to 25 communities nationwide. Funding will be utilized for developing and implementing coordinated community approaches to preventing and ending youth homelessness and sharing that experience and communities around the country to mobilize them toward the same end. Read HUD’s Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) here.
“HUD has a responsibility to communities in this nation, especially youth. Housing greatly impacts our education, our employment, and our opportunities to thrive,” said Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “These grants underscore HUD’s commitment to eradicating homelessness, especially among young people, who all need and deserve a safe place to call home.”
YHDP is unique because the program is informed by youth that have experienced homelessness. It is one of the first dedicated federal initiatives that funds permanent housing programs for youth, and focuses on building local coordinated systems for responding to youth homelessness. HUD continues to work closely with youth to develop and improve YHDP, relying upon the recommendations provided directly from young people who have experienced homelessness.
Eventual YHDP recipients will be able to use this funding to address youth homelessness in ways that are specifically tailored to their needs, including funding for housing units, wrap-around services, and housing support. YHDP will also support youth-focused performance measurements and coordinated entry systems. Once selected, communities will work with their youth action boards, child welfare agencies, and other community partners to create a comprehensive community plan to end youth homelessness. Communities will serve as leaders in the nation on the work to end homelessness among young people.
The NOFO reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to preventing and ending youth homelessness through a coordinated community approach. Specifically, the demonstration has seven primary objectives:
- Build national momentum. Motivate state and local homelessness stakeholders and youth services providers, including Runaway and Homeless Youth providers across the country to prevent and end youth homelessness by forming new partnerships, addressing system barriers, conducting needs assessments, testing promising strategies, and evaluating their outcomes.
- Promote equity in the delivery and outcomes of homeless assistance. Executive Order 13985 calls on agencies to advance equity through identifying and addressing barriers to equal opportunity that communities may face due to government policies and programs. Similarly, HUD expects YHDP recipients to promote equity throughout the community’s youth homeless response system for youth who are disproportionally more likely to experience homelessness, such as Black, Indigenous, Hispanic (non-white), and LGBTQ youth who are disproportionally more likely to experience homelessness. Awarded communities will promote equity throughout their youth homeless response system and all YHDP projects will measure and demonstrate equitable delivery and outcomes. This includes identifying barriers that led to any disparities in subpopulations being served and taking steps to eliminate these barriers in the community’s youth homeless response system.
- Highlight the importance of youth leadership: Demonstrate effective models of strong leadership and agency by youth with lived experience in the community. Create replicable best practices of youth leadership for other communities.
- Evaluate the coordinated community approach. Evaluate coordinated community approaches to preventing and ending youth homelessness, including local and state partnerships across sectors and other planning operations.
- Expand capacity. Expand community capacity to serve youth experiencing homelessness (particularly by using a Housing First approach), pilot new models of assistance, and determine what array of interventions is necessary to serve the target population in their community.
- Evaluate performance measures. Evaluate the use of performance measurement strategies designed to better measure youth outcomes and the connection between youth program outcomes and youth performance measures on overall system performance for the Continuum of Care (CoC).
- Establish a framework for Federal program and TA collaboration. Determine the most effective way for Federal resources to interact within a state or local system to support a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness.