Preliminary Strategic Plan - Prevention of Youth Homelessness (January 2021)
Summary
A Preliminary Strategic Plan on the Prevention of Youth Homelessness, dated January 2021, a report to the Legislature from the Office of Homeless Youth Prevention, issued pursuant to Chapter 357, Laws of 2020 (96). The executive summary quotes the proviso providing $75,000 of the general fund-state appropriation for fiscal year 2021 for the department of commerce to co-lead a prevention workgroup with the department of children, youth, and families. It lists the plan's required elements: how existing efforts are coordinated, demographics, promising interventions and policy improvements, and current prevention funding streams. Key findings state that youth who are Black, Indigenous and people of color, LGBTQ2+ or have intellectual or developmental disabilities experience housing instability disproportionally.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
Cite this document
“Preliminary Strategic Plan - Prevention of Youth Homelessness (January 2021).”
Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/2021-preventingyouthhomelessnessreport-01292021-1f0ecffc-ff81-4582-935-bcff8f2a88/
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PRELIMINARY STRATEGIC PLAN
Prevention of Youth
Homelessness
PURSUANT TO CHAPTER 357, LAWS OF 2020 (96)
January 2021
OFFICE OF HOMELESS YOUTH
PREVENTION REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE
Lisa Brown, Director
2.4
Acknowledgments
The Office of Homeless Youth is grateful to all the Robin Tatsuda | Arc of King County
community organizations, networks of service
providers, and lived experts who were willing to Joe Ingolia | Boys and Girls Club
make time to talk through the issues they see with
access to services for youth and families. Thank William Hairston | Center of Children Youth Justice
you for your generosity, knowledge and expertise.
Jenny Young, Sherrie Flores and Peggy Lewis |
The work would not have been possible without
Department of Children Youth and Families (DCYF)
you.
Michelle Hoffman and Theresa Slusher |
Zack Sideek | Arc of King County
Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS)
Randy Ford | Black Trans Taskforce
Jennifer Hogge and Brittany Smith | Health Care
Nicolas Quijano, Claire Petersen | Cocoon House Authority
Daisey Abreu | Consejo Matt Smith | Office of Superintendent of Public
Instruction
Colleen Ryan | Cornerstone 253
Barbara Carr | Washington Association of Juvenile
Audrea Woll | Family Promise of Skagit Valley Court Administrators
Maju Qureshi | Multi-Service Center Shawyna Spino | Washington Gorge Action
Programs and Y4Y board
Page | North West Youth Services
Siri Hiltz, Tami Masenhimer | Washington State
Katie Joannes | Parent Advocate Library
Passion to Action members | Advisory board to the Milo Edwards | Youth Eastside Services and Y4Y
Department of Children Youth and Families board
Kelly Edwards, Caitlin Cordell, Brooke Lukensmeyer, Melanie Alay | Y4Y board
Monique, Maddie | Room One
Thank you to professionals at the state level who
Dr. Jasmine Zavala and Teofilia Cruz-Uribe| SeaMar made time to share your work and opportunities for
Adolescent Medical Clinic collaboration
Liz Nelson | Washington Association of School Alice Coil, Aaron Moore, Erinn Havig, Jess Lewis,
Social Workers Laura Alfani, Rachel Mercer | DCYF
Damon Wagner | Washington Gorge Action Rose Spidell, Yordanos Gebreamlak | Office of the
Programs Education Ombuds.
Youth 4 Youth (Y4Y) board members | Youth Haley Lowe | Office of Superintendent of Public
Homelessness Demonstration Project Instruction
Thank you to the Prevention Development Team
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS
Washington State Department of Commerce
Diane Klontz, assistant director
Community Services and Housing Division
Tedd Kelleher, senior managing director
Housing Assistance Unit
Kim Justice, managing director
Office of Homeless Youth
kim.justice@commerce.wa.gov
SL (Shree Lakshmi) Rao,
sl.rao@commerce.wa.gov
OFFICE OF HOMELESS YOUTH
1011 Plum St. SE
P.O. Box 42525
Olympia, WA 98504-2525
www.commerce.wa.gov
For people with disabilities, this report is available
on request in other formats. To submit a request,
please call 360.725.4000 (TTY 360.586.0772)
[CLICK TO ADD THE TITLE OF THE REPORT IN THE FOOTER] 3
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 5
How Existing Efforts are Coordinated ......................................................................................................... 11
Demographics of Population ...................................................................................................................... 14
Promising Programs .................................................................................................................................. 20
Prevention Funding Streams ...................................................................................................................... 26
Recommendations and Next Steps ............................................................................................................. 28
Appendix A: Prevention Programs at the State Level .................................................................................. 33
Appendix B: Data Sources .......................................................................................................................... 38
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 1
Executive Summary
Overview
The 2020 Washington State Legislature included a proviso in the 2020 supplemental operating budget
(Chapter 357, Laws of 2020) to support the development of a draft strategic plan addressing the issue of youth
homelessness in the state:
(96) $75,000 of the general fund—state appropriation for fiscal year 2021 is provided solely for the department of
commerce to co-lead a prevention workgroup with the department of children, youth, and families. The workgroup shall
focus on preventing youth and young adult homelessness and other related negative outcomes. The workgroup shall
consist of members representing the department of social and health services, the employment security department,
the health care authority, the office of the superintendent of public instruction, the Washington student achievement
council, the interagency workgroup on youth homelessness, community-based organizations, and young people and
families with lived experience of housing instability, child welfare involvement or justice system involvement.
(a) The workgroup must develop a preliminary strategic plan to be submitted to the appropriate committees of the
legislature by December 31, 2020 that details:
(i) How existing efforts in this area are coordinated;
(ii) The demographics of youth involved in homelessness and other related negative outcomes;
(iii) Recommendations on promising interventions and policy improvements; and
(iv) Detail and descriptions of current prevention funding streams.
Table 1: Locations of Proviso Elements in the Plan
Strategic Plan Requirement Location in this Document
(i) How existing efforts in this area are coordinated; How Existing Efforts are Coordinated
(ii) The demographics of youth involved in homelessness and other related
Demographics of Population
negative outcomes;
(iii) Recommendations on promising interventions and policy improvements; and
Promising Programs
(iv) Detail and descriptions of current prevention funding streams. Prevention Funding Streams
This report is a preliminary strategy that outlines the underlying reasons for youth and young adult
homelessness, sets a framework around prevention and identifies gaps and highlights early recommendations
and immediate next steps.
Key Findings
Youth who are Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), LGBTQ2+ and youth with intellectual or
developmental disabilities experience housing instability disproportionally. Youth experience housing
instability because of a complex set of reasons. Each young person's experiences and story of housing
instability is different. However, commonalities in these narratives suggest that youth homelessness is due to
several interrelated root causes. These root causes can be categorized under three major factors:
1. Structural Factors
2. System
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 2
3. Individual and Relational Factors
In our conversation with young people, the most commonly identified cause of homelessness was
interpersonal and individual factors. In many cases, however, multiple individual and interpersonal factors
intersected with gaps in the system and structural factors leading to housing instability.
Systems and services are insufficient at multiple levels to provide the support that youth and families need to
navigate adolescence. There are very few programs and services to help develop parenting skills or supports
for parents experiencing challenges with their youth. Many available services are not funded to make them
universally accessible outside of the child welfare and the juvenile justice system. This forces families to
become formally involved with the juvenile justice or child welfare systems to access services they might
need. While trauma-informed, healing-centered programs exist, they are not funded at a level that makes them
consistently available across the state. These gaps, and many more in the systems' approach to helping youth
and families, can cause youth to experience housing instability and other negative outcomes.
Early Gaps Identified in State System Led Interventions
Gaps identified through conversation with lived experts, community organizations and government
stakeholders working across different agencies are:
Primary prevention services related to youth homelessness or family crisis support are not funded and
available consistently across Washington, and families have to interact with formal systems to get help.
Siloes across different agencies and departments create a system of disconnected services that youth and
families have to navigate.
Schools can play a role in primary prevention but do not have the resources to do so.
Programs and services currently in place to serve youth and families are not working for communities of
color.
Youth labeled as "high functioning" autistic slip through the system siloes without receiving appropriate
supportive services.
Programs, services and expectations designed for able-bodied, neuro-typical youth are not appropriate to
effectively serve autistic youth.
Funding and policies to address homelessness are focused on tertiary prevention, causing a lack of
services and supports for caregivers in the early stages of a crisis.
Prevention programs lack flexible and integrated funding streams.
Programs designed for able-bodied, cisgender,1 neurotypical, white, middle-class, English-speaking, urban
youth and families do not translate across intersections of race, culture, language, gender identity, class,
location, neuro-diversity and historical marginalization. It is important to ensure that lived experts co-design
services and solutions to ensure their relevancy and impact.
1 A person whose gender corresponds to the gender assigned at birth.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 3
Recommendations and Next Step
Recommendations
There are three key intermediate recommendations from its initial research and analysis:
1. Create and establish a coordinating body focused on preventing unaccompanied youth homelessness,
unnecessary system involvement with child welfare, juvenile justice system and other negative outcomes.
The coordinating body should include state agency representatives, legislators, practitioners, youth and
caregiver lived experts.
Amend RCW 43.03.220 to allow compensation for lived experts' participation in the coordinating body
and related state-level advisory groups to allow for an inclusive, equitable approach to informing the
government.
2. Build the data infrastructure to measure the prevalence of youth and young adult homelessness.
Develop a youth homelessness database with data sharing between the Office of Superintendent of
Instruction (OSPI) and Research and Data Analysis (RDA) to ensure a comprehensive youth
homelessness measure.
3. Provide funding to the Department of Children, Youth and Families to redesign their Family Reconciliation
Service to be a community-based service for youth and families focused on primary prevention.
Next Step
OHY will collaborate with community organizations Innovation Human Trafficking Collaborative and
Communities of Color Coalition to co-design a statewide strategy for prevention with BIPOC youth lived
experts of homelessness and caregivers.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 4
Introduction
Background
This report complements other recent prevention-related efforts and should be considered alongside other
resources and initiatives, including:
Families and Youth in Crisis
SB 6560, Improving Stability for Youth Exiting Systems of Care
SB 5290, eliminating the use of detention for status offenders
Families First Prevention Services Act
Reducing Poverty & Inequality in Washington State: 10-year plan for the future
Understanding the Root Causes of Youth and Young Adult
Homelessness
To prevent youth homelessness, it is important to understand its underlying causes. The Office of Homeless
Youth (OHY) defines homelessness or housing instability as - lacking a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime
residence, including sleeping in emergency shelters, on the streets, in cars, in other unsafe or unstable places,
or "couch-surfing" and "doubled-up" where a person has no legal right to stay. OHY focuses on housing and
supportive services for youth and young adults between the ages of 12 and 24 who are unaccompanied by a
parent or an adult caregiver.
Image 1 shows the complex interaction between the structural factors, systemic gaps, relational and individual factors that lead to a young person
experiencing housing instability.
Youth experience housing instability because of a complex set of reasons. Each young person's experiences
and their story of housing instability is different. However, commonalities in these narratives suggest that
youth homelessness is due to several interrelated root causes. A Way Home Canada's Roadmap for the
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 5
Prevention of Youth Homelessness2 identifies that complex interaction among three major categories, namely
structural factors, system inadequacies and individual and relational factors, impacts a young person's
housing stability.
Conversations with providers working with youth and families and young people experiencing homelessness
have highlighted many seen and unseen factors that cause housing instability among the three major
categories identified above, including:
1. Structural Factors
Structural factors are large systemic issues that are intractable from an individual's perspective. They include
historical harms, practices, policies and processes that continue to impact communities today. Structural
factors also determine the types of actions that an individual can take in response to a problem or the range of
actions they can even consider.
Poverty
Racism (in housing, jobs, education access, service access)
Settler colonialism (on-going erasure of culture, language and religious practices)
Historical trauma (from losing language, land, culture, religion and practices)
Lack of economic opportunities
Lack of affordable housing
Ableism (discrimination based on preference for able-bodied, neuro-typical adults)
Historical medical practices based on bias against people with mental illness and developmental
disabilities
Social stigma of mental illness
2. System Inadequacies
The system includes government agencies in charge of designing and implementing programs and services
for people at the state and local levels. System inadequacies or gaps occur when youth and families'
underlying needs are not met through existing programs and services offered by the different agencies making
up the larger system. This could be because:
Types of services designed by non-lived experts working in government are not appropriate for age
group, family type, neuro-diversity or culture.
Services and programs are not available consistently across the state.
Lack of coordination across agencies and departments reduces the effectiveness of programs and the
scope of impact.
Lack of engagement strategies reduces the awareness of the programs and services available.
Siloes across different agencies and departments create a system of disconnected services that youth
and families have to navigate.
In many communities, families have to interact with formal systems to get help for their youth because
supports and resources are not available through community-based organizations. The stigma of being
system-involved and the fear of deeper system involvement discourages families from accessing help.
2 Gaetz, S., Schwan, K., Redman, M., French, D., & Dej, E., (2018), "The Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness," A. Buchnea
(Ed.). Toronto, ON: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 6
3. Individual and Relational Factors
Individual factors are attributes at an individual level that The adolescent period, from ages 12 through 25,
affect a young person's experiences. For example, a is a key developmental window during which
young person's undiagnosed or untreated behavioral significant changes happen physically,
health issues will affect relational factors within the emotionally, psychologically and socially. The
household, increasing family conflict and creating an adolescent brain is malleable and highly
environment resulting in the young person leaving the sensitive to its environment. The adolescent
household or being kicked out. Relational factors such brain is vulnerable to impact from physical
as the death of a caregiver or domestic violence are harms, such as drugs or environmental toxins,
interpersonal issues that can also negatively affect as well as psychological ones, such as trauma
housing stability: and stress. It is also more responsive to positive
influences, making interventions that occur
Undiagnosed or untreated Mental illness during this time significant in their influence on
(schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) young people's success and stability into
Trauma (immigration, neglect, abuse) adulthood.
Sexual orientation
Positive adult guidance is essential as young
Gender identity
people navigate a variety of situations including
Intellectual or developmental disability
puberty, peer pressure, and identity formation,
Autism
particularly gender and sexual orientation.
Domestic violence (caregiver, partner)
Parental substance use disorder
Death of a caregiver
Failed adoption
The lists under each of the domains above are not exhaustive and will continue to expand as we learn more. In
our conversations with young people, the most commonly identified cause of homelessness was interpersonal
factors and individual factors to a lesser degree. In many cases, multiple individual and interpersonal factors
intersected with gaps in the system and structural factors leading to housing instability. For example, a Black
youth with autism might not be diagnosed at an early age compared to their white peers,3 leading to
misdiagnosis and strong disciplinary measures. The underlying behavioral health needs of the Black student
go unmet. Parents might not obtain tools to help them navigate related issues. The structural factors of racism
and implicit bias intersect with individual factors to impact students' learning outcomes.
As highlighted in Canadian Observatory on Homelessness and A Way Home Canada's Roadmap for Prevention
Youth Homelessness, it is important to note that the structural factors and systemic gaps create the
conditions where individual and interpersonal factors result in homelessness. It is vital to recognize the need
for programs and services that support both caregivers and youth to prevent youth homelessness. This
approach is termed as two-generational (2Gen) or multigenerational in families and communities where the
caregivers are grandparents and extended family members.
3 National Center for Biotechnology Information, Mandell, Wiggins, Carpenter, et al, "Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Identification of
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, American Journal of Public Health, (2009),
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661453/
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 7
Defining Prevention
The Office of Homeless Youth team uses a public health approach to look across a continuum to ensure
prevention can happen at multiple levels. The team developed a modified prevention continuum for youth
homelessness, as shown below in Image 2.
PRIMORDIAL PRIMARY EARLY LATER TERTIARY
PREVENTION PREVENTION SECONDARY SECONDARY PREVENTION
PREVENTION PREVENTION
Education for larger Supporting youth and Preventing housing
population of the families prior to Early system (CPS or Preventing deeper instability for those
state, youth and system involvement Juvenile or Criminal system involvement exiting the system
families to reduce risk of Justice) interaction and housing
housing instability for that does not lead to instability. Ensuring those who
youth out of home are experiencing
placement or homelessness move
incarceration. quickly into safe and
stable housing and
receive appropriate
supports
Image 2 highlights the continuum along which prevention of youth homelessness should occur.
Primordial Prevention: Due to the complexity of young people's experiences, the continuum starts with
prevention efforts intended to provide support, resources and information to all families with
adolescents in the state. These include mass media messaging or behavior change messaging.
Primary prevention approaches are
more targeted to families and youth Tertiary (Few
who might be at risk of conflict, youth)
housing instability or system
involvement. Primary prevention
Early & Later
strategies are intended to support
secondary (Some
families before a young person
youth and
experiences housing instability or
families)
system involvement.
Secondary prevention The Primary (Many youth and
interventions in this space focus on families)
preventing deeper system
involvement, such as out of home
placement or incarceration. Because
of the array of programs and Primordial (All youth and families)
processes across systems, it is
important to break secondary Image 3 shows the scope of the prevention efforts across the continuum.
Primordial prevention efforts focus on a much larger population and is intended
prevention into two separate segments: to reduce the pipeline of youth requiring more intensive prevention supports.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 8
1. Early secondary prevention - Interventions that focus on supporting youth and families who may have
intersected with the juvenile justice and child protective services to prevent deeper system
involvement.
2. Later secondary - Interventions that focus on supporting youth and families formally involved in public
systems such as the juvenile justice or foster care system
Tertiary Prevention: Work done by the homeless response system, where resources are designed to
quickly move a young person who is actively experiencing homelessness into safe and stable housing to
prevent further harm. Here, community organizations connect youth and young adults with resources
that they need to stay stably housed. These resources include employment, case management, mental
and behavioral health supports and housing navigation services.
To learn more about programs in state systems that fall across this continuum, refer to Appendix A.
Previous work on prevention conducted by OHY and DCYF has focused on different parts of the prevention
continuum. For example, the report, Improving Stability for Youth Exiting Care, focuses on preventing youth
homelessness after exiting from a system, which is Later Secondary Prevention. The resources managed by
OHY are focused mostly on Tertiary Prevention, ensuring youth and young adults experiencing homelessness
can be quickly housed. The Families and Youth in Crises report was one of the first reports to focus on primary
and early secondary prevention. On-going work concerning this proviso will focus on primordial, primary and
early secondary prevention to complement and add to existing bodies of work.
Approach for the Report
The Office of Homeless Youth (OHY) has conducted a landscape analysis through conversations with youth
and family-serving organizations4 across the state and reviews of existing literature in the space of prevention.
OHY has also convened regular meetings with representatives from agencies and community organizations
that work with youth and families in a prevention capacity.
Agencies Include:
Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) at the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF)
Adolescent Programs at DCYF
Department of Early Learning at DCYF
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)
Libraries
Washington Association of Juvenile Court Administrators (WAJCA)
Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) Developmental Disability Administration (DDA)
Economic Services Administration (ESA) at DSHS
Health Care Authority's (HCA) Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery (DBHR)
Community Organizations Include:
Center for Children and Youth Justice
Boys and Girls Club
4 Organizations include: Room One, Consejo, Multi-Service Center, Cocoon House, Northwest Youth Services, Black Trans Task Force,
WAGAP, Family Promise of Skagit Valley, Cornerstone 253, SeaMar, Arc of King County, Washington Association of School Social
Workers, Innovation Human Trafficking Collaborative
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 9
Arc of King County
Other state agencies that are part of the Interagency Workgroup on Youth Homelessness5 have been informed
about the prevention work. The youth lived experts of housing instability joined the team to help synthesize the
findings to document the following request articulated in the proviso.
Phases of the Work
July - December December 2020 May 2021-July August 2021
2020 - May 2021 2021 •Final strategic plan
•Understanding •Co-design with •Gather feedback on prevention of
root causes lived experts from lived experts, youth
•Understanding disproportionately community and homelessness
state systems impacted by advocacy
•Preliminary report homelessness organizations
Image 4 highlights the phases of the work required to develop a robust youth homelessness prevention strategy.
Developing a prevention strategy for youth homelessness for Washington requires a multistage approach that
involves multiple government agencies and community organizations.
Starting in January 2021, the team will engage lived experts to create a steering committee to lead the
development of the final strategic plan with recommendations to the Legislature and state agencies on system
changes and services needed in the community to prevent youth homelessness. Employment Security
Department and the Washington Student Achievement Council will be consulted in future phases of the work.
Please see the Next Steps section for details on the steering committee.
5 Washington State Department of Commerce, " Office of Homeless Youth Committees and Workgroup,"
https://www.commerce.wa.gov/serving-communities/homelessness/office-of-youth-homelessness/office-of-homeless-youth-
committees-and-work-group/
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 10
How Existing Efforts are Coordinated
Overview
At the state level, multiple agencies or programs they fund intersect with youth and families at different times
of need. Some of these systems include the Department of Children Youth & Families (Early Learning, Child
Protection Services, Child Welfare, and Family Reconciliation Services), Developmental Disabilities
Administration within DSHS, Economic Services Administration within DSHS (food assistance, cash
assistance, medical eligibility, and refugee and immigration assistance), Health Care Authority, libraries and
the Office of Homeless Youth.
At the county level, organizations such as the Washington Association of Juvenile Court Administrators
(WAJCA) coordinates programs, practice and policy change across the state.
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is a state agency that provides guidance, tools and
resources to 295 school districts and six State-Tribal Compact Schools.
Community organizations that are prevalent across the state, such as the Boys and Girls Club and Arc, also
intersect with youth and families with different levels of need.
PRIMORDIAL PRIMARY EARLY LATER TERTIARY
PREVENTION PREVENTION SECONDARY SECONDARY PREVENTION
PREVENTION PREVENTION
School programs
Street outreach Diversion Shelter & housing
Library programs
OJJ funded programs
HCA's substance use prevention and mental health promotion programs
DDA services DDA services
DSHS programs
DCYF Adolescent programs OSPI's programs
DCYF programs for
pregnant and supporting homeless
parenting teens youth
Image 5 shows high-level information on the spectrum of offers across agencies based on the prevention continuum. Some agencies serve a larger
population of youth and families, and others focus their prevention efforts on a specific sub-population of the state.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 11
Each state agency has a mandate accompanied by funding streams
that direct what programs are established and what services are
provided. Programs for youth and families in the prevention space
that fall along the continuum are split across different state-level
agencies.
Details of prevention-related programs funded by state entities can
be found in Appendix A.
Absence of Consistent Coordination and
Standards Across Agencies Create
Service Issues
Through conversations with stakeholders across systems that
serve young people, it became clear that coordination across
different agencies is limited, unstructured and does not occur Individuals in
consistently. In places where coordination occurs across more than agencies take
one system, it is not institutionalized or structured. In many cases, it
is driven by individuals stepping out of their role to coordinate personal initiative to
across systems to ensure that the services are available and easy coordinate with other
to access for the young person and/or family being served. This
form of coordination is based strongly on relationships with the partners to meet the
potential for coordination to fail when the individual leaves or needs of families.
transitions to a new role.
When that individual
Once a key driver of cross-system coordination leaves their role, the leaves, the effort falls
connections are lost, and the individual systems go back to
providing services in a siloed manner. For the youth and families apart leaving youth
experiencing these "quality of service deserts," the level of and families
frustration is understandable. Additionally, these changes in care
and coordination can account for many system failings to reduce
frustrated and feeling
and/or limit homelessness. Some agencies coordinate with local abandoned.
service providers but not across other agencies. Finally, the broad
range of service coordination approaches results in inequitable
outcomes for youth and families by geography, system, and even case manager. This inequity in outcomes
and access must be corrected if homelessness is to be eliminated in our state.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 12
GAP: Primary prevention services related to youth homelessness or family crisis support are not
funded at a level making them available consistently across the state, and families have to interact
with formal systems to get help.
Primary prevention services and programs to support youth and families are currently designed and
run by community-based organizations (CBOs) that adjust their programs based on the needs they
see in the community. CBOs rely on state, local and private funding to keep their programs available
in the community. In areas where there is a strong network of community-based providers, youth and
parents have more variety of services to consider. In other areas of the state, the juvenile justice
system is the default response to resolving situations such as family conflict and crisis, housing and
mental health needs. The stigma of being involved with systems such as juvenile justice or child
welfare, and the fear of deeper system involvement discourages families from accessing help.
Additionally, families have to admit to a "deficit" to qualify for services through a court or for form a
court filing such as At-Risk youth petition.
Community-based programs that proactively offer support to youth and families experiencing crises
are not funded and available uniformly across the state.
At the state level, prevention efforts across different agencies are siloed by agency mandates and
requirements of different funding streams. Each agency defines its prevention efforts differently. There is no
cohesive effort around the prevention of youth homelessness and other negative outcomes.
GAP: Siloes across different agencies and departments create a system of disconnected services
that youth and families have to navigate.
Lack of coordination across agencies and departments reduces the effectiveness of programs and
the scope of impact. Each agency has a set of outcomes on which it focuses. Housing stability is not
a success or outcome measure across all prevention-related systems in the state.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 13
Demographics of Population
Multiple data sources identify youth at risk of experiencing housing instability or those who are actively
experiencing homelessness. These data sources include:
Homeless student data: Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) manages and publicly
posts homeless student data to their website.
Homeless Management Information System (HMIS): Community-based housing providers collect data
at intake; data includes who is accessing housing-related services and where are they exiting to.
Cross-system data: The Research and Data Analysis (RDA) team at DSHS identifies homelessness for
youth after they exit from a system. This data is analyzed across different housing programs and DSHS's
internal data portal, DCYF's InfoFamLink and juvenile rehabilitation data, and behavioral health inpatient
admissions data to provide a picture of how effective state systems are at promoting and supporting the
stability of housing for youth over the longer term.
Program-level data: Details on who is accessing state programs, including age, race and ethnicity
Analysis of the different data sources can be found in Appendix B.
Demographic Data Available Include:
Race and ethnicity: All of the data sources above capture youth and young adults' race and ethnicity.
Sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI): SOGI data is not consistently captured across systems
for all age groups. For example, HMIS data contains partial SOGI data for youth and young adult
populations and cannot be relied on for a better understanding of how many lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender,6 queer and two-spirit7 (LGBTQ2) youth are experiencing homelessness.
Location: Youth experience homelessness differently based on where they live. Young people's access
to services might be limited or expansive based on location or region. Housing and employment
opportunities may also be limited. The data sources above can provide information on the prevalence of
homelessness or show the need for preventative services based on location.
Disability: OSPI data capture disability information better than other data sources. DSHS's DDA team has
data on their clients, who are a much smaller population compared to all people with intellectual or
developmental disabilities in the state. Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and Medicaid data will need
to be incorporated into cross-system data to understand the prevalence of youth with intellectual and
developmental disabilities served and those not served by state systems.
Age: Data sources above capture the age of participants in provided programs.
6 A person whose gender does not correspond to the gender assigned at birth.
7 It is an umbrella term used by some indigenous communities to denote the third gender.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 14
Racial Disproportionality
BIPOC Youth Experiencing Poverty at High Rates in Washington
According to the analysis of five years of American Community
Survey data included in the Poverty Reduction Workgroup's 10-year People of color experience
strategic plan,8 nearly half the young people between 18-24 years in poverty at
the state are low income or in poverty, with 20% of them
experiencing deep poverty while an additional 9% are close to the 2x
Federal poverty level.9 Thirty-seven percent of children and
the rate of white people in
adolescents between the ages of 6-17 are experiencing poverty in
Washington.
Washington. The data also shows that people of color, specifically
Latinx, Indigenous, and Black, experience poverty at twice the rate
of white people in Washington. Higher poverty rates in communities
of color are due to policies, practices and other harms that have 49%
continued to marginalize people of color by preventing the building
of wealth by denying access to loans, housing opportunities, of young people between 18-24
education, and employment. While the data does not break down years are low income or
disproportionality in the experience of poverty concerning age, we experiencing poverty in
can extrapolate that youth and young adults of color Washington.
disproportionately experience poverty.
Poverty results from multiple structural factors and systemic shortcomings that are similar to the root causes
of youth homelessness. Poverty deprives the family of physical, emotional, social, financial, mental, and
structural resources to navigate family conflict and other causes of youth homelessness.
Students of Color Experience Homelessness at Higher Rates Than Their White Peers
This is evidenced in the OSPI youth homelessness rate by race and ethnicity shown below. The graphic also
shows that transgender, non-binary, questioning, two-spirit youth experience homelessness at higher rates
than their cisgender peers. The race and ethnicity breakdown in the graphic below is for all youth experiencing
homelessness, not only unaccompanied youth.
GAP: Schools can play a role in primary prevention but do not have adequate resources.
Schools are consistently available to youth and families for resources across the state. Schools are
often a place of safety and positive adult support for youth, and offer a potential avenue for
prevention efforts. School social workers, counselors, and family engagement coordinators regularly
support students furthest from educational justice, and school psychologists can provide critical
mental or behavioral health supports. Staff in each of these roles can play a part in ensuring that
youth get the supportive services that they need prior to experiencing homelessness. However, the
current prototypical school funding model funds these critical staff positions far below what is
necessary to eliminate opportunity gaps for our state’s most vulnerable students. The Staffing
Enrichment Workgroup has recommended adjustments to the prototypical funding model and OSPI
has requested funding to implement these changes during the 2021-23 biennium.
8 Poverty Reduction Workgroup, "Reducing Poverty & Inequality in Washington State," (January 2020),
https://dismantlepovertyinwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2020_Jan_21_PRWG_10_year_plan_COORDINATING_DRAFT.pdf
9 Deep poverty is 0-49% of Federal poverty level (FPL). Poverty is 50-100% of FPL.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 15
Demographics of Students Experiencing Homelessness in Washington:
Image 6 visualizes the data from OSPI's youth homelessness dashboard by highlighting the gender, race, and ethnicity of the state's entire student
population and comparing it to students experiencing homelessness.
Racial Disproportionality of BIPOC Youth Entering Systems
BIPOC youth experience child welfare and juvenile justice system
involvement at higher rates than their white peers do. According to Black, Native American, Pacific
the Child Wellbeing Data Portal,10 as of July 2020, Black or African Islander/Native Hawaiian youth
American children were placed in out-of-home care at more than are removed from their homes
twice the rate of their white peers, as were multiracial and and placed in out of home care at
American Indian/Alaskan Native children.
2x
The table below shows the rate of entry of youth for every 1,000
youth in the general population of that demographic in January the rate of their white peers.
2019. The values in bold indicate when the rate is close to twice
the rate of out of home placement for White youth.
10 Center for Social Sector Analytics & Technology, "Child Well-being Data Portal," (2020), http://pocdata.org/
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 16
Table 2: Rate of Entry of Adolescents into Child Welfare by Age, Race and Ethnicity
Age at Removal Race /Ethnicity Rate of Entries
African American/Black 4.76
American Indian/Alaskan Native 4.70
Asian 0.42
10- 14 years
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 4.06
White/Caucasian 2.02
Multiracial 3.96
African American/Black 4.19
American Indian/Alaskan Native 2.97
Asian 0.37
15-17 years
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 5.11
White/Caucasian 1.58
Multiracial 3.95
Source: Center for Social Sector Analytics & Technology, "Child Well-being Data Portal," (2020), http://pocdata.org/
Young people of color experience publicly funded systems of care at higher rates than their white peers, and
they disproportionately experience homelessness after they exit these systems. A dashboard released by RDA
in July 2020 titled "Homelessness Among Youth Exiting Systems of Care in Washington state"11shows that out
of the 1,441 young people who experienced homelessness 12 months after exiting foster care, residential
behavioral health treatment or the juvenile justice system in 2017, over half (52%) were BIPOC youth. Over 60%
of the young people experiencing homelessness after exiting foster care and juvenile justice were BIPOC
youth.
11 Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, "Homelessness Among Youth Exiting Systems of Care in Washington
State," (July 2020), https://www.dshs.wa.gov/sites/default/files/rda/reports/research-11-254.pdf
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 17
GAP: Programs and services that are currently in place to serve youth and families are not working
for communities of color.
The data on disproportionality of poverty in the state, youth experiencing out of home placement and
those who exit systems and experience homelessness speaks for itself. It is important to take a
critical lens to existing programs and services, gather detailed programmatic data on outcomes
across racial groups and by region and feedback from different communities to understand what is
required to meet the needs of communities of color. Programs that are designed for able-bodied, cis-
gendered, neuro-typical, White, middle-class, urban youth and families are not going to translate
across intersections of race, language, culture, gender identity, class, location, neuro-diversity and
historical marginalization. A targeted universalism approach, where those who are most marginalized
and least served by programs, are co-designer of the services and systems will lead to better services
and programs for all youth across the state.
Disability and Homelessness
Youth with disabilities are disproportionally represented in the According to Division of
housing unstable population. According to the Division of Vocational Vocational Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation (DVR), 11% of young people (ages 14-24) with
disabilities experienced housing instability in 2018.12 9,286
According to Homeless Student Data from OSPI, students with young people (ages 14- 24) with
Section 504 and those with disabilities are also disproportionately disabilities were unstably
represented in the housing unstable population (See graphic on the housed in 2018
next page).
GAP: Youth who are labelled as "high functioning" autistic slip through system gaps without
receiving appropriate supportive services.
Supports for families with youth who are labelled as having "high functioning" autism are limited. Many youth,
especially BIPOC youth, are not diagnosed early or are misdiagnosed. For youth who are diagnosed with "high
functioning" autism, they have to be eligible for Medicaid and pass the cutoff for youth services. Many Medicaid
programs do not receive training or know how to work with Autistic youth and young adults. An additional
challenge is identifying appropriate supports to benefit families who need assistance in managing challenging
youth needs.
12 Department of Social and Health Services, "DVR Service Needs for Adults," (August, 2020),
https://www.dshs.wa.gov/sites/default/files/dvr/pdf/DVR-Customer-Service-Needs-2018.pdf
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 18
Detailed Demographic Information of Students Experiencing Homelessness:
Image 7: OSPI's Homeless Student data dashboard data from 2018 highlights the prevalence of poverty, disability, and other factors in the general
population compared to youth experiencing homelessness.
Further analysis of data from the DDA and DVR, looking across homeless student data, will be required to
understand how many youth and young adults who experience housing instability have intellectual or
developmental disabilities and the unmet need for services for them and their families. It will also be important
to breakdown the data by race and ethnicity to understand whether BIPOC youth with disabilities experience
homelessness at higher rates.
GAP: Programs, services and expectations designed for able-bodied, neuro-typical youth often are
not adequate or appropriate to serve youth with autism.
Shelters and transitional apartments may be inaccessible to youth and young adults with autism due to their
sensory systems. For example, bright fluorescent lights or a highway outside of the window of the housing
may negatively impact the young person, leading them to sleep outside, as it would be easier. Organizational
materials or rules may be written in ways that would cause Autistic folks to miss important things because
they are written between the lines or it is assumed to be understood as "common sense."
Another factor is that organizations are not specifically trained in how to form positive relationships with
autistic people, which can create misunderstandings and force many autistic people to be unenrolled from
services because of it.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 19
Promising Programs
Promising programs were assessed based on research and input from subject matter experts, agency
stakeholders, community organizations and lived experts. The team has identified various programs that focus
on family support, educational attainment, substance use prevention and promotion of protective factors.
While there are many interventions focused on supporting young people actively experiencing homelessness,
as highlighted by researchers at Chapin Hall,13 there is a lack of programs that focus on preventing youth and
young adult homelessness.
Table 3 below shows promising programs from across Washington and the nation. Not all the programs
shown below are funded by state agencies or available in Washington. The ones that are available in
Washington are not consistently available across all counties. It is possible that not all promising programs to
prevent youth homelessness and other negative outcomes are included below. To only view programs and
services funded by state agencies, see Appendix A.
Table 3: Primordial Prevention Programs
Program Organization Details
A website with a call-in line to check if families qualify for food or
health benefits. Ability to learn about available resources in their
123 Parent Help Within Reach
community. The program currently emphasizes resources for
parents with young children.
Available at museums,
After school teen Available regionally. Specific programming depends on the
science centers and
programs organization and location.
libraries
Call in line developed to support individuals through the stress of
WA Listens Health Care Authority COVID19 and uncertainty. Provides non-clinical support for
people who might be stressed
Substance use and
underage drinking Health Care Authority See Appendix A for details.
prevention campaigns
21st-century learning Office of Academic Programs that support after-school educational support for low-
centers14 Improvement income students
Family resource Navigators to help families navigate services by providing more
Various
navigators personable and "hand-on" support
The organization focuses on two-generational supports to
Northside Northside Achievement
African American families and students in the Northside of
Achievement Zone Zone (NAZ)
Minneapolis to ensure that students can achieve their best.
13 Chapin Hall, "Missed Opportunities: Evidence on Interventions for Addressing Youth Homelessness," (October 2019),
https://www.chapinhall.org/wp-content/uploads/Evidence-Review-Brief.pdf
14 US Department of Education, "Programs," https://www2.ed.gov/programs/21stcclc/index.html
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 20
Program Organization Details
Funded by United Way Support to BIPOC organizations to support school engagement
of King County, for BIPOC youth from different communities by using a positive
Love and Liberation
implemented by various cultural identity framework. Each organization utilizes tools that
BIPOC organizations are meaningful to the youth and their specific community.
Health Care Authority supports Community Wellness and
Substance Use Prevention Initiative (CPWI) to prevent Substance Use Disorder in
Disorder Prevention adolescents in their community and promote mental health
Health Care Authority
and Mental Health using evidence-based practices. CPWI is an evidence-based
Promotion Programs practice for coalition building and bringing evidence-based
policies and programs to scale.
Trained and certified Student Assistance Professionals (SAPs)
are placed in middle and high schools. The SAP services are a
Health Care Authority
multi-tiered approach, where prevention and intervention
Student Assistance and Office of
services are provided to the entire school community (universal
Professionals (SAPs) Superintendent of
prevention). Group or individual interventions (selected/indicated
Instruction
prevention and intervention) are provided to students who are
most vulnerable for, or are using, alcohol, tobacco or other drugs.
Table 4: Primary Prevention
Program Organization Details
Small group support for parents with adolescents based on
SAFE project15 Cocoon House
the Strengthening Families Program
Strengthening Various (evidence-based Family, parenting and youth life skills that youth and parents
Families Program16 program) attend weekly.
Multi organization
A universal screen is done in schools to identify youth at risk
Geelong Project17 partnership in the Geelong
of homelessness to ensure they are connected to services.
area in Australia
Wrap Around with
Intensive Services Health Care Authority In-home intensive behavioral health support
(WiSE)
Brief Strategic Family Various (evidence-based A culturally competent and strengths-based model to support
Therapy program) parents and youth
15 Cocoon House, "Project SAFE Support Group," http://www.cocoonhouse.org/prevention-calendar/2015/10/13/project-safe-support-
group
16 Strengthening Families Program, https://strengtheningfamiliesprogram.org/
17 The Geelong Project, http://www.thegeelongproject.com.au/
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 21
Program Organization Details
Focused on improving family functioning and behavior
Functional Family Various (evidence-based
change to reduce family conflict and increase hope and
Therapy program)
relationship quality with family members
Various (evidence-based
Creating Lasting Program to support families to understand childhood
program in substance use
Family Connections behaviors and create a nurturing environment for their child.
prevention)
Designed for Hispanic families living in the US and focuses on
Various (evidence-based promoting positive parenting. Programs prevent illicit drug
Familias Unidas
program) use, antisocial behavior and risky sexual behaviors in
adolescents.
School or community-based centers that focus on
programming relevant to the area they are located. Programs
Family support are multigenerational and include homelessness prevention,
Various
centers18 education, employment etc.
Specific call outs - Family and Youth Resource Center and
South Whidbey School District Family Support Center
Graduation Reality and Program to support pregnant and parenting students by
Dual Roles Skills OSPI strengthening family foundation skills, providing childcare on-
(GRADS)19 site and coordinating activities outside the classroom.
School-based
Choose 180 Program to support youth at risk of suspension and expulsion
diversion
Positive Parenting Various (evidence-based Helps parents develop parenting skills and decrease
Program (Triple P) programs) behavioral issues with the youth
Prevention Plus Wellness,
SPORT Single session substance use prevention program
LLC
18 National Family Support Network, "Family Support Centers," https://www.nationalfamilysupportnetwork.org/family-support-programs
19 Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, "Graduation, Reality And Dual-Role Skills (GRADS),"
https://www.k12.wa.us/student-success/learning-alternatives/graduation-reality-and-dual-role-skills-grads
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 22
Table 5: Early Secondary Prevention
Program Organization Details
The FAPT model approaches supporting youth at risk of out of home
Family Assessment placement by coordinating regular meetings with families, youth and
and Planning Team Various supervisory staff across multiple government agencies, such as child
(FAPT) model welfare, schools, juvenile justice to supportive services are provided to
prevent system involvement.
Community-Based The LA county-based program has a comprehensive community-
Violence
Assessment and based assessment across multiple medical hubs to evaluate and treat
Intervention
Treatment, Medical child and teen abuse and provides supportive services to them and
Program
hub20 their families.
Various (evidence- Intensive home-based service to help families manage moderate to
Home Builders
based program) high family conflict
Family Crisis Institute for Family
The goal is to resolve immediate crises in a family with a youth.
Intervention Services Development
Focuses on ensuring young people who ask for housing help receive
Anchor Communities A Way Home services across four communities in the state. The Centralized
Initiative Washington Diversion Fund provides flexible funding to help young people quickly
secure housing.
Dispute Resolution
Various Supporting youth and families navigating conflict.
Centers
Table 6: Later Secondary Prevention
Program Organization Details
De-escalation program that prevents further
Family Interventions
involvement in the justice system by offering a space
and Restorative King County Juvenile Division
for overnight respite for youth arrested for domestic or
services
family violence incidences
This program has been adapted from the Family
Community
Integrated Transitions (FIT) model to support BIPOC
Passageways - Family
Community Passageways youth-at-risk, currently involved or those who have had
Integrated Transitions
juvenile or criminal justice involvement. The program
(CP-FIT)
Involves family and the community.
20 Violence Intervention Program, "Children & Teen," https://violenceinterventionprogram.org/about-vip/our-programs/children-teen/
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 23
Program Organization Details
Collaboration between Juvenile A pilot program that dedicates multiple beds in a youth
System of Rehabilitation, YouthCare and housing organization specifically for youth exiting from
care/Innovation grant Volunteers of America funded Juvenile Rehabilitation ensures that they do not exit
by OHY into homelessness.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 24
Table 7: Tertiary Prevention
Program Organization Details
Social Impact Center at Collaboration between a youth housing provider, legal services
Youth Engagement YMCA, Legal Counsel for and mental health provider to help youth actively experiencing
team Youth and Children, Friend homelessness navigate barriers such as obtaining an ID,
of Youth staying in school etc.
Foundations for Social Direct Cash Transfer to support people experiencing
New Leaf project21
Change homelessness
Multisystemic Various (evidence-based Family and community-based intervention for juvenile
therapy program) offenders to decrease criminal behavior
Coordination Everett is also one of the few districts with HMIS access and
between the school Everett School District can cross-reference enrollment data against HMIS to ensure
district and HMIS students and families are served.
Support to youth and young adults navigating aspects of
Rental assistance Various renting for the first time, including support for first and last
month rent deposit or paying rent.
Master leasing allows a community organization to own the
Various (including
rental agreement with the landlord and sublease it to youth.
Volunteers of America,
Master leasing This approach works well for youth because they might not
North West Youth Services
have rental history, credit or have a record that might prevent
and Cornerstone 253)
them from accessing housing on the market.
Housing that includes case management, behavioral health
Supportive housing Various support and access to adulting skills such as cooking, laundry,
managing finances etc.
Creating housing opportunities across the state by enabling
Washington Host Home
Host Homes families with a spare room in their house to host a young
Coalition
person who needs housing.
21 Foundations for Social Change, "Taking Bold Action on Homelessness," (Sept. 2020),
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f07a92f21d34b403c788e05/t/5f751297fcfe7968a6a957a8/1601507995038/2020_09_30_FS
C_Statement_of_Impact_w_Expansion.pdf
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 25
Prevention Funding Streams
Overview
At a high level, funding streams fall into four overarching categories: federal, state, local (city or county) and
private. State and local government agencies utilize a patchwork of federal and state funding for their
prevention work. Only a few of the said funding streams have an emphasis on prevention at the primary level.
Different funding streams have different restrictions on who can receive services and what the money can be
used for. This makes it more difficult to develop any single coherent intervention to prevent youth and young
adult homelessness.
1. Federal Funding
The Health Care Authority's prevention efforts are funded by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMSHA). Similarly, many of the programs in the primary prevention space supported
by DSHS are funded federally, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Schools' prevention
funding streams also come from the federal level. Programs such as McKinney-Vento (MV) provide support to
youth actively experiencing housing instability and are also enrolled in public school. One-off or program-
specific funding is also available from federal sources; for example, libraries access federal funds for specific
programs.
GAP: Funding and policies to address homelessness are focused on tertiary prevention causing a
lack of services and supports for caregivers and youth in early stages of crisis.
Majority of funding and policies to address homelessness are focused on tertiary prevention,
intervening once someone is actively experiencing homelessness. There are few resources and
programs in the housing and homelessness system that address prevention at early states along
the prevention continuum.
Parents and caregivers need support to understand the adolescence period of development and
how to effectively assist and support young people through it. For example, community-level
programs focused on LGBTQ2 parenting and gender transitions help families understand what it
means when their children "come out" to them. Parent hotlines can provide caregivers with
emotional support and help problem solving challenges that arise in their relationship with their
youth. Culturally appropriate programs for youth and families of color help navigate the impacts of
racism and culturally specific aspects of transitioning to adulthood could prevent housing
instability.
The Family First Prevention Services Act will provide IV-E funding for prevention services for children or youth
who are candidates for foster care, pregnant or parenting youth in foster care, and the parents or kin caregivers
of those children and youth.22 Family Reconciliation Services is included in the department's first cohort in the
federal implementation plan.
22 Administration for Children & Families, "Title IV-E Prevention Program," https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/title-iv-e-prevention-program
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 26
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds a wide range of homelessness and housing programs that
provide tertiary prevention once individuals are actively experiencing homelessness. The Family and Youth
Services Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funds Runaway and Homeless Youth
programs, such as outreach, shelter, transitional housing, and family violence prevention programs.
Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention funding provides about $1 million to DCYF per year to pay for all the
prevention work. While this pool was traditionally used specifically to prevent early childhood abuse and
neglect, the funding was expanded to include the adolescent age group.
2. State Funding
Many adolescent-related prevention programs are supported by state-level funding, such as Family
Reconciliation Services (FRS) and the Homeless Student Stability Program (HSSP). OHY programs for
outreach, shelter, and housing are funded primarily through the state.
3. Local Funding
Libraries are examples of a system funded by local funding streams, such as city budgets, resourced through
property taxes. Local governments at city and county levels have different revenue and funding sources that
may be used to address youth homelessness. The available funding and the approved program expenditures
vary in each municipality. For example, King County supports youth homelessness initiatives through the Best
Start for Kids funding.23 Best Start for Kids, as a funding stream, does not exist in any other counties.
Therefore, other counties do not have access to this funding stream to support youth homelessness
prevention and intervention initiatives.
4. Private Funding
Community organizations rely on a patchwork of state, local and private funds to support the programs that
youth and families rely on for support when in crisis. Depending on state, federal and private funder priorities,
the programs families find most helpful may not be funded to the level necessary to make an impact. In
conversations with community-based organizations across Washington, the message was consistent. The
number one priority, repeatedly emphasized, was to provide support for basic family needs such as food,
employment, rent and shelter to ensure youth in the family do not experience housing instability.
GAP: Prevention lacks flexible and integrated funding streams.
As indicated earlier, financial support for prevention is siloed based on the requirements of the
funding stream; for example, substance use prevention dollars can only be used for prevention of
substance use. The funding stream also dictates where on the prevention continuum state agencies
focus their prevention efforts. A narrow focus of the prevention funding prohibits collaboration across
agencies creating siloed programs and services that communities have to navigate. This siloed
approach to funding does not allow for a cohesive prevention approach. Flexible and integrated
funding streams can allow for a cohesive approach to prevention of youth homelessness by looking
across the prevention continuum.
23 King County, https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/community-human-services/initiatives/best-starts-for-kids.aspx
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 27
Recommendations and Next Steps
Establish a coordinating body focused on the prevention of
unaccompanied youth and young adult homelessness.
The coordinating body should focus on preventing youth homelessness, unnecessary involvement in child
welfare or juvenile justice system and other negative outcomes to ensure that agencies are looking holistically
at a two-generational or multigenerational approach to supporting youth and their families. Lived experts and
those disproportionately impacted by homelessness and system involvement should be a part of the
coordinating body alongside legislators, practitioners and agency stakeholders. Lived experts should be paid
for their time.
Those directly impacted by the programs, policies, and state and local government decisions are some of our
best subject matter experts. Compensation is a key factor in ensuring that people with lived experience receive
equitable representation. Yet state laws prohibit compensation for members of part-time boards and
commissions who serve an advisory, coordinating, or planning function. It is recommended that RCW
43.03.220 be amended to allow compensation for lived expert members to participate in the coordinating
body. Compensating lived experts for their time will allow for an inclusive, equitable approach to designing a
comprehensive and coordinated approach to preventing youth homelessness.
The cross-system coordinating body should work to reduce racial disparities in youth homelessness, ensure
coordination of funding, pilot innovative approaches and work together to implement and scale programs and
services design with and by lived experts. A cross-system coordinating body can address many of the system
gaps identified in this report.
Some of the activities can include:
Coordinate across programs, share learnings and find opportunities to collaborate to eliminate silos
across prevention programs and services for families and youth.
Identify pathways to implement prevention of youth homelessness strategy designed by lived experts
with input from cross-system agency stakeholders.
Coordinate across silos to make recommendations to the Governor and state legislature on flexible
funding to support primordial and primary prevention of youth homelessness work. The group can also
leverage its existing funding sources to collaborate to develop and implement innovative solutions to
support youth and families.
Ensure that youth with autism, youth with I/DD or mental illness do not slip through the gaps in programs
and supportive services that systems offer.
Work towards ensuring services are available consistently to all families across Washington's whole
prevention continuum. Ensure that families do not have to intersect with the formal systems (juvenile
justice or foster care) to get help.
A cross-system coordinating body on prevention can tackle structural factors that lead youth to experience
homelessness by developing and implementing anti-racist and LGBTQ2 affirming policies and practices.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 28
Build the data infrastructure to measure the prevalence of youth and
young adult homelessness.
The Research and Data Analysis (RDA) team at the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) should:
Collaborate with the Office of Superintendent of Instruction (OSPI) to develop a youth homelessness
database with data sharing between OSPI and RDA to ensure a comprehensive youth homelessness
measure.
Conduct data analysis to estimate the prevalence of youth and young adult housing instability,
emphasizing youth race/ethnicity, disability, and location to understand statewide needs and current
access to resources.
Include OSPI's student homelessness data
Include juvenile court information
Include data from Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA), Division of Vocational
Rehabilitation (DVR)
Healthy Youth Survey
Analyze data to understand how many youth and young adults who experience housing instability have
intellectual or developmental disabilities and the unmet service needs for them and their families by
including DDA, DVR, and other data sources.
Additionally, a housing instability assessment should be included in programs that serve young people, such
as Family Reconciliation Services and juvenile court programs that support "Becca Bill" petitions:24
This includes understanding prior housing conditions and post-intervention housing conditions.
Evaluate a young person's stability 6 to 12 months after services are delivered to understand whether the
service was effective.
Redesign the Family Reconciliation Service to be a community-
based service for youth and families focused on primary prevention.
Currently, Family Reconciliation Services (FRS) provided by DCYF is one of the only preventative services
available to adolescents and families at the state level. It requires youth and families to access services by
calling the CPS intake line and agree to voluntary services. This inherently involves the family in the child
welfare system. In many cases, youth and families are referred through the court system for FRS services
because they have an At-Risk Youth or Child in Need of Services petition filed. In 2018, about 3,700 youth were
referred for FRS services.25 This represents a small number of youth who need supportive services across the
state to ensure they do not experience housing instability or other negative outcomes. It is important to
redesign the FRS process.
24 Petitions filed under RCW 28A.225.030, also known as "Becca Bill."
25 InfoFamLink data
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 29
Moving FRS program implementation and program ownership out of the Child Welfare Division in DCYF to
Adolescent Programs in DCYF, emphasizing making it a community-based service, will facilitate collaboration
with communities, genuine prevention before any systems involvement, and service flexibility. Concentrated
efforts and future funding will be required to redesign the service to ensure that FRS services meet youth and
families' needs with a strong racial equity lens. It will be important to:
Find pathways other than juvenile courts and CPS intake line to access services.
Ensure that services are consistently and reliably available across the state.
Ensure culturally relevant programming is incorporated so that BIPOC youth and families are supported.
Ensure that services provided through FRS are also trauma-informed and healing centered.
Gather data on disability, service utilization and measure outcomes in the longer term, including
educational attainment and housing stability.
Gather feedback on the appropriateness of service provided
Iterate on end-to-end service delivery to ensure it continues to meet all youth and families' needs
anywhere in the state.
Next Steps
As a clear next step, OHY will collaborate with community organizations Innovation Human Trafficking
Collaborative and Communities of Color Coalition to co-design a statewide strategy for prevention with BIPOC
youth lived experts of homelessness and caregivers.
Black, Indigenous and youth of color26, youth with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD)27 and
LGBTQ2 youth28 are disproportionately represented in the unstable housing population across the US and
Washington. BIPOC youth and those with I/DD use homelessness services such as shelters less than their
white and neurotypical peers. To ensure that we develop policies, services, and programs that serve all youth,
especially those disproportionally represented in the homeless population, it is important to ensure that those
disproportionately represented in the unstable housing population can inform new policies, services and
system changes. OHY continues to engage the youth advisory board (Y4Y29) for the Youth Homelessness
Demonstration Project (YHDP), representing youth lived experts from the rural most counties of the state and
youth from the Mockingbird Society for our work at large.
26 Voices of Youth Count, "Missed Opportunities: Youth Homelessness in America," https://voicesofyouthcount.org/brief/national-
estimates-of-youth-homelessness/#finding-five
27 The Bronfebrenner Center for Translational Research at Cornell University, Psychology Today, (Sept. 2020),
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evidence-based-living/202009/what-we-know-about-homelessness-and-intellectual-
disability?eml
28 Voices of Youth Count, "Missed Opportunities: Youth Homelessness in America," https://voicesofyouthcount.org/brief/lgbtq-youth-
homelessness/
29 Youth 4 Youth
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 30
Developing a steering committee made up of youth and families disproportionately impacted by homelessness
to guide the prevention work will ensure that solutions do not leave out youth who are most marginalized.
Timelines and Phases of Work
July - December May 2021 - July August 2021
December 2020 - May 2021 •Final strategic
2020 2021 •Gather feedback plan on
from lived experts, prevention of
•Understanding •Co-design with
community and youth
root causes lived experts homelessness
•Understanding disproportionately advocacy
state systems impacted by organizations
•Preliminary report homelessness
Image 7: Highlights the expected phases of the work required to develop a robust draft strategic plan to prevent youth homelessness.
Steering Committee of Lived Experts
In developing policy and system recommendations for preventing youth homelessness, it is important to
understand and analyze the intersectionality of individual, structural and systemic issues that affect young
people. As highlighted previously, young people experience housing instability due to a complex set of
reasons. Root causes of youth homelessness include structural issues such as poverty, policies affecting
those with intellectual or developmental disabilities, historic trauma due to on-going settler colonialism,
structural racism in city and county housing policies. The team will build on the work done by the Poverty
Reduction Work Group30 and the 10-year strategic plan to reduce poverty and inequality31. These root causes
result in individual or interpersonal issues such as adverse childhood trauma, mental illness and family conflict
due to intellectual and developmental disabilities placing youth and their families at risk of housing instability.
While the root causes of housing instability might be the same for white youth and BIPOC youth, it is important
to understand how race, ethnicity and marginalization impact young people, their families and communities. By
ensuring steering committee members represent different ethnic minorities, geographical differences and
have lived experience of one or more of the root causes of housing instability, we can ensure that solutions to
prevent youth homelessness address the needs of historically marginalized communities and all youth
experiencing housing instability.
OHY engages youth lived experts of homelessness in policy, program and system-level decision making. We
work closely with youth advocacy organizations such as the Mockingbird society to ensure that young people
design the systems that serve them. OHY also supports the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project
(YHDP) youth advisory board, Youth 4 Youth (Y4Y), representing the state's most rural counties. However,
through the course of OHY's work, the team has identified that BIPOC youth continue to be a group that OHY
has not had the opportunity to hear from directly. Therefore, the steering committee will be focused on
gathering the voices of youth and families of color.
30 Poverty Reduction Work Group, "About the Work Group," https://dismantlepovertyinwa.com/about-the-work-group/
31 Poverty Reduction Work Group, "Blueprint for a Just & Equitable Future: The 10-Year Plan to Dismantle Poverty in Washington,"
https://dismantlepovertyinwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final10yearPlan.pdf
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 31
Steering Committee Composition
Race, Ethnicity, Age and Identity Factors
The OHY intends for the steering committee to be made up of:
90% of people who identify as people of color (with priority given to Black, native, Latinx and Pacific
Islander communities)
60% of those who have lived experience of homelessness when they were between the ages of 12 to 24
(youth committee members can be between the ages of 18 to 30)
40% of those who identify as parents or caregivers who have had a child who experienced housing
instability or experience with one of the factors in section 2c
At least 25% of the committee consisting of youth experts with intellectual or developmental disabilities
(I/DD) and autism; and those who identify as caregivers for youth with I/DD and autism
At least 25% of the committee consisting of LGBTQ2 youth, with an emphasis on trans or gender non-
binary youth, and caregivers who identify that they have cared for LGBTQ2 youth
Geographic Mix
Steering committee members will represent urban and rural areas with a mix of eastern and western parts of
the state.
Other Factors
Caregiver members will have supported youth with one or more of these experiences while a youth lived expert
will have direct experience with one or more of these root causes (these factors are included to ensure
diversity of voices driving the committee):
Severe mental illness
Child protective services involvement
Family conflict due to gender identity or sexual orientation
Substance use disorder
Truancy
Poverty
Family homelessness
Involvement with the justice system, including county courts
Development of Final Strategic Plan
In addition to ensuring the steering committee identifies and directs the strategy to prevent youth
homelessness in the state of Washington, the team will ensure lived experts outside of the steering committee,
community-based and advocacy organizations, and state agencies are consulted to provide input and
feedback on the plan.
The plan will be submitted to the Legislature on Aug. 31, 2021.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 32
Appendix A: Prevention Programs at the State Level
Agencies at the state level implement different prevention programs in different ways. Each state agency
defines prevention differently and is looking at preventing different youth-related behaviors or outcomes. This
appendix lists prevention-related programs at the state level, funded and implemented by different state
agencies. This list is not exhaustive.
Primordial Prevention
Education and information shared with the broad population of youth and families across the state. These
include marketing campaigns, parent and youth learning opportunities.
Developmental Disability Administration (DDA)
Partnership with Informing Families to provide education and information to families and youth with
intellectual and developmental disabilities
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)
The education system plays an important role in ensuring youth are connected to their community, learn
various skills and develop self-confidence.
HIV/AIDS prevention education
Sexual health education
Health and physical education
School Social Workers - Some school districts have mental health workers to support youth.
Health Care Authority (HCA)
Not a Moment Wasted (College Students Substance Use Disorder Prevention)
Start Talking Now (Underage drinking prevention)
Starts with One (Opioid Use Disorder Prevention)
Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (CPWI): CPWI coalitions implement evidence-based,
research-based and promising programs such as Creating Lasting Connections, Family Unidas and
SPORT.32 CPWIs work across the prevention continuum.
Community-Based Organization (CBO): CBOs bring evidence-based, research-based and promising
programming to their communities. Some statewide organizations might implement programs across their
chapters for adolescents. CBOs work across the continuum.
Student Assistance Professionals (SAPs) - HCA and OSPI partner through CPWIs to provide SAP support.
Trained and certified Student Assistance Professionals (SAPs) in middle and high schools. The SAP
services are a multi-tiered approach, where prevention and intervention services are provided to the entire
school community (universal prevention). Group or individual interventions (selected/indicated prevention
and intervention) are provided to students who are most vulnerable for, or are using, alcohol, tobacco or
other drugs.
32 Substance use disorder prevention evidence based programs utilized by HCA are documented here:
https://www.theathenaforum.org/
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 33
Community and Technical Colleges
Parenting education programs
Libraries
Story times
Teen advisory boards
Teen volunteer programs
Adulting skills programs
Parenting education programs
Primary Prevention
Primary prevention consists of programs and services set up specifically to support families, youth and
communities in crises.
Economic Services Agency (ESA)
Programs offered through ESA can be seen as two-generational approaches. They support parents to navigate
life circumstances through temporary cash and food assistance in addition to employment supports.
According to DSHS's website, DSHS funds the following:
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF): TANF provides temporary cash for families in need.
Washington's WorkFirst program: a program to assist recipients of TANF in meeting their goals and
providing well-being for their families
Housing and Essential Needs (HEN) referral: Housing and Essential Needs (HEN) referral program provides
access to essential needs items and potential rental assistance for low-income people who cannot work
for at least 90 days due to a physical and/or mental incapacity. Applicable to those who are 18 years or
older.
Basic Food: Basic Food is the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (SNAP). SNAP is called Basic Food in Washington and helps people with low incomes make ends
meet by providing monthly food benefits.
Developmental Disability Administration (DDA)
Community First Choice Personal Care provides long-term supportive care in a home setting and is tailored
to each individual to support them in remaining in their home.
Respite services provide short-term intermittent relief for caregivers.
Specialized Habilitation services assist clients in learning or maintaining skills in the categories of self-
empowerment, safety awareness, self-advocacy, interpersonal effectiveness, effective social
communication, appropriate coping strategies for everyday life changes, managing daily tasks or adaptive
skills.
Community engagement services are services designed to increase a waiver participant's connection to
and engagement in formal and informal community supports.
Health Care Authority (HCA)
According to HCA's website, HCA provides funding for the following efforts:
Tribal Prevention and Wellness Programs: Innovative, culturally relevant evidence-based programming
implemented by Tribes to prevent adolescent use of alcohol, marijuana and other drugs
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 34
Wrap-Around Intensive Services (WiSE): WiSE model provides comprehensive behavioral health services
and support to eligible Medicaid-funded children and youth in Washington.
Student Assistance Professionals (SAPs)
Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (CPWI)
Office of Homeless Youth (OHY)
Street Outreach Services (includes outreach at libraries, LGBTQ2 centers to connect young people with
services)
Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF)
Nurse-family Partnership: while the focus is on pregnant mothers and supporting their transition with a
young child, this program also supports pregnant teens.
Other primary prevention programs at DCYF focus on preventing child abuse and neglect, but these
programs currently do not focus on adolescents.33
Early Secondary Prevention
DCYF
The Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) at DCYF provides funding to CBOs implementing programs that
prevent youth from becoming formally involved in the juvenile justice system, including programs at the
referral and filing stages, so that youth are diverted from formal involvement in the juvenile justice system.
DDA
Case management helps clients eligible for paid services to gain needed medical, social, educational and
other services.
OHY
Diversion: financial assistance to divert a young person from the homeless response system
Later Secondary Prevention
DCYF
The Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) at DCYF develops and implements programs that prevent youth at risk
of going deeper into the juvenile justice system from doing so through a formal diversion process.
Family Reconciliation Services (FRS) is a voluntary program serving youth (12-17 years) in conflict with
their families or those who have an At-Risk Youth (ARY), Child In Need of Services (CHINS) or Truancy
petition filed. FRS services are meant to be short-term intervention services to resolve family crises and
prevent unnecessary out-of-home placement. The intervention services provided are chosen from different
evidence-based practices such as Triple P, Functional Family Therapy Home Builders; programs
highlighted in the promising programs section.
Family Voluntary Services responds to families who need services following a Child Protective Services
(CPS) investigation.
33 Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families, "Prevention," https://www.dcyf.wa.gov/practice/practice-
improvement/ffpsa/prevention
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 35
Family Assessment Response (FAR) is a CPS alternative response to investigating a screened-in allegation
of child abuse or neglect. FAR focuses on child safety and the integrity and preservation of the family when
lower-risk child maltreatment allegations have been screened-in for intervention.
Libraries
Libraries can conduct outreach to juvenile detention centers located in a library service area and schools
and community teen centers.
OHY
Crisis Residential Centers: Temporary residence, assessment, referrals, and permanency planning services
provided in semi-secure and secure facilities for youth ages 12 through 17 who are in conflict with their
families, have run away from home, or whose health and safety are at risk
HOPE Centers: Temporary residence, assessment, referrals, and permanency planning services for street
youth under 18
System of care grants are provided to state systems of care to test, and pilot programs and practices that
ensure youth exiting their systems do not experience housing instability.
Tertiary Prevention
Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI)
McKinney Vento Program ensures immediate enrollment, educational stability, and school-based supports
for youth experiencing homelessness who are eligible to attend public school/preschool. McKinney-Vento
provides federal funding to states to support district programs that serve homeless students.
The OSPI Homeless Student Stability education Program (HSSP) awards state-funded competitive grants
to increase school districts' capacity to identify and provide support for students experiencing
homelessness. Grant applications receive greater weight if they specifically address opportunity gaps for
students of color experiencing homelessness, additional supports for unaccompanied youth, and
partnerships with CBOs.
OHY
Street Outreach Services engage youth who might be currently involved in the juvenile justice system
Diversion funds can be used for young people who are actively experiencing housing instability and need
cash assistance to access housing
Housing youth and young adults include specific housing for youth exiting from systems, including young
adult housing program, independent youth housing program
Young Adult Shelter: Emergency, temporary shelter, assessment, referrals and permanency planning
services for young adults ages 18 through 24
HCA
Substance use disorder prevention
Student Assistance Professionals (SAPs)
Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (CPWI)
DDA
Stabilization services assist a person experiencing a crisis and can be delivered out of home in a diversion
bed setting or as an hourly service as specialized habilitation or staff or family consultation.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 36
DCYF
Juvenile Rehabilitation has housing navigation managers to help young people exiting the system obtain
access to housing, employment and other resources.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 37
Appendix B: Data Sources
This section provides more details on the data sources available to identify the demographics of youth
experiencing homelessness.
Homeless Student Data
Homeless student data, collected by school districts and compiled by OSPI, provides an estimate of the need
for housing services for families with youth across the state. The data are organized across school districts
and counties and break down housing instability from pre-k to 12th grade. Housing instability is further
classified based on the family's housing type, such as "doubled-up," sheltered and unsheltered. The data also
show how many youths with disabilities are experiencing homelessness and how many students are homeless
without an adult.
Homeless Management Information System
Analysis of the Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS) provides data on youth and young
adults actively experiencing housing instability and accessing housing or related services in the community.
Data is only collected once a young person or a household with a young person interacts with the state's
homeless response system.
The data captures race, ethnicity, location and age. Gender identity and sexual orientation data are not
consistently captured for youth and young adults. While HMIS provides a starting point to understand housing
instability for the 12-24 years age group, it is limited to individuals who have or are currently accessing
services. Youth and young adults might be doubled up with family or strangers, in need of housing and related
services and may never come in contact with housing-related organizations. It is difficult to predict the
prevalence of youth homelessness in the state with the current data access and information.
Around 3,700 youth under 18 accessed HMIS housing resources in 2019. HMIS data also shows that around
8,000 households with young adults (18-24 years), most of whom are unaccompanied, accessed housing
resources in 2019. While this number indicates the need, it might be a gross underestimate of the actual
number of young adults experiencing housing instability in the state. Further analysis of HMIS exit, LGBTQ2
and race and ethnicity data broken down by region and age group will be required to understand how
effectively the current homelessness response systems serve marginalized youth and young adults.
Student homelessness data34 that highlights homelessness by school district is broken down by family
homelessness and unaccompanied homelessness. While the information is accessible through OSPI's
website, the lack of integration between OSPI's data and RDA's data prevents identification of the true
prevalence of unaccompanied youth homelessness by region, race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual
orientation.
Cross-system Data
Cross-system data published by RDA in July 2020 looked at homelessness among youth exiting systems of
care in Washington.35 The "homeless" data is restricted to literal homelessness and does not include young
34 Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, "UPDATE: Homeless Students," (2019),
https://www.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/public/homelessed/pubdocs/2019-01-update-homeless-students-data.pdf
35 Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, "Homelessness Among Youth Exiting Systems of Care in Washington
State," (July 2020), https://www.dshs.wa.gov/sites/default/files/rda/reports/research-11-254.pdf
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 38
people who might be "doubled up," "couch surfing," and those who have not actively intersected with the
homeless response system or received some form of state food or cash assistance. According to RDA,
information on system involvement is analyzed from:
"Information on inpatient services, homelessness, and incarceration records are based on information from the
Integrated Client Database (ICDB). The ICDB combines measures derived from the following administrative systems,
among others: ProviderOne (medical claims, diagnoses, and behavioral health inpatient admissions), FamLink (foster
care), ACT (juvenile rehabilitation institutions and community facilities), the Behavioral Health Data System (behavioral
health inpatient admissions), the Automated Client Eligibility System (economic services and homelessness), and the
Homeless Management Information System (housing services and homelessness)."
The data shows that about 1,500 young people experience homelessness after exiting residential behavioral
health, foster care, and the state's criminal justice systems. Sixty-eight percent of the young people
experiencing homelessness exited from residential behavioral health systems. The updated dashboard from
RDA replaces previous dashboards and includes new data, such as homelessness by county and underlying
needs of youth who exited systems. For example, 64% of young people who experienced homelessness after
exit had one or more indication of co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder compared to 50% of
those who were not homeless.
To learn more about recommendations to prevent youth exiting systems of care from experiencing
homelessness, refer to the Department of Commerce report in Jan. 2020, Improving Stability for Youth Exiting
Systems of Care.
Program-level Data
The team has identified other state-level programs that could indicate a young person's current or future
housing needs. These state-level programs include:
Family Reconciliation Services (FRS): Families actively trying to access FRS could indicate a family's
need to navigate issues with their adolescent. Housing stability is not tracked before or after FRS-related
services are delivered. To understand the programs' impact and effectiveness under FRS, it will be
important to track housing stability before and after receiving services.
"Becca Bill" petitions:
At-risk youth petition
Child in need of services
Truancy petition
Unfortunately, juvenile county courts do not track housing instability before interaction with the juvenile justice
system or after. Data analysis across the courts, homeless response and DSHS systems will be required to
understand how effective these programs are at predicting housing instability and supporting longer-term
housing stability. Connecting school, county juvenile justice data systems with that of RDA will enable a deeper
understanding of the demographics of youth involved in housing stability. Work is in progress to create a data
agreement between the Administrative Office of the Courts and DSHS's RDA team to ensure a better estimate
of housing instability for young people in the state can be developed to focus on understanding
disproportionality.
PREVENTION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS 39
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