1001 6th Avenue, Suite 1501 New York, NY 10018 www.porticus.com

Organization Type

Independent Foundation

Mission

It's impossible for one organization to solve all the world's challenges, so we focus on areas we understand best: education, society, faith and climate. With focus and cooperation, we work to advance human dignity around the world.

Funders Together to End Homelessness supports philanthropy to end youth homelessness through organizing the Funders Network for Youth Success, which is open to any FTEH member with an interest in these issues. This Network has composed the following resources: 

Upcoming Learning Opportunities

Webinar: Child Welfare, Youth Homelessness, & Abolitionist Values 

Register for this webinar that both tackles the intersection of youth homelessness and child welfare while also learning advocacy tools that help us prioritize the most effective and just reforms. Register here. 

Friday, March 21, 2025 | 2pm ET / 1pm CT / 12pm MT / 11am PT 

Co-sponsored by Funders for Justice

Youth Homelessness Funder Strategy Circles 

Launched in 2024, the Funders Network for Youth Success hosts bimonthly forums to discuss emerging issues affecting philanthropy’s role in preventing and ending youth homelessness. This is the opportune place to showcase your work, ventilate struggles, get input from colleagues, and build relationships with others in similar roles. 

All members of Funders Together to End Homelessness are eligible; simply fill out this form, after which you’ll receive a calendar invitation from Michael Durham.

Meetings take place on the 4th Tuesday every other month at 2:00 ET, 1:00 CT, 12:00 MT, 11:00 PT.  

Funders Together Resources

Imagining a Better Future for Youth Homelessness Funders 

Youth Homelessness Funders gathered in San Francisco in March 2024 to imagine a future in which philanthropy failed to catalyze the movement to end youth homelessness and what we should do to prevent such failure. These slides summarize what we learned.

Past Webinars

Washington State Reduced Youth Homelessness 40% and You Can, Too

Washington State reduced homelessness among unaccompanied youth and young adults by 40% after launching a concerted campaign to do so in 2016. During this webinar, we heard the funder perspective on Yes to Yes, a lauded public-private partnership, that contributed to this life-saving success.

After an overview of what the project accomplished, we explored how funders worked in collaboration and adapted to feedback in real time, highlighting the cross-system (education, criminal-legal, foster care, etc.) work that proved essential. The conversation highlighted transferable lessons that funders in other states can embrace, including strategies applicable across all age groups of people living with housing instability.

Stability Starts at Home: Strategies to End Student Homelessness 

At the EdFunders 2023 annual conference, when we asked attendees what their most pressing concern was among intersectional issues affecting our work, housing was at the top of the list. This bears out in the data: homelessness rose overall by 12% in 2023 according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education, which uses a more instructive definition of homelessness, identified 1,205,292 public-school students experiencing homelessness during some point of the 2021-22 school year – this a 79% increase from 2004-05 (NCHE). The widening gap between incomes and housing costs is largely responsible, a disparity caused and compounded by structural racism and other forms of oppression.

This webinar will confront this crisis using a “housing justice” framework to address student homelessness, with an emphasis on youth and young adults. We will connect the dots between national advocacy on affordable housing, homelessness and education justice, featuring a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and showcasing their grantmaking strategies at this intersection. We'll also hear from an advocate for students experiencing homelessness whose personal experience informs his work.

Preventing Youth Homelessness Series: Interrupting Incarceration 

Youth involved in the legal system are much more likely to experience housing insecurity. In turn, youth who are homeless are much more likely to be incarcerated. How do we interrupt carceral cycles so that homelessness is never the result for young people in the legal system? Continuing a series of webinars on preventing youth homelessness, this webinar will examine the promise of Housing Stability for Youth in Courts (H-SYNC), a Washington state navigation program supporting young people in the juvenile court system who are at risk of homelessness. We learned from its designers about how it can be replicated across the country and used H-SYNC as an entry point to broader conversation about disrupting carceral systems for youth homelessness prevention.  

Preventing Youth Homelessness Series: Identifying Student Risks through the Upstream Project 

The prevention of youth homelessness requires interventions at the roots, stabilizing young people’s living situations before crisis culminates in homelessness. Participants learned about The Upstream Project and how it has been effective in preventing youth homelessness abroad, including both the funder and practitioner perspective, and lessons for implementing it in the United States.

Mobilizing Philanthropy for Youth Homelessness Prevention 

During this funder call with the Funders Network for Youth Success (FNYS), participants discussed effective solutions for youth homelessness prevention, heard from partners within the movement, and connected with other funders to share their organization's efforts to address the issue.

Preventing Youth Homelessness Series: The Role of Healthcare 

This webinar explored the range of intersections between youth homelessness and healthcare, focusing on health policy that would improve young people’s housing security and what healthcare providers need to support young people at risk of homelessness.

Preventing Youth Homelessness Series: The Role of Education
Building off Funders Together’s February convening on prevention of youth homelessness, in addition to a September 14th companion webinar on the role of employment services, this virtual gathering will dive deeper on the role of the education system in preventing youth homelessness. Starting with a “state of the movement” on education-based services for children and youth at risk of or experiencing homelessness, we will hear about a new initiative that homes in on the intersection of homleessness, education, criminal-legal system, and foster care. Opportunities abound for funders to get involved. Come prepared to share your own work on this issue as applicable.

Preventing Youth Homelessness Series: The Role of Employment Services
Building off Funders Together’s February convening on this topic, this webinar dove deeper into the role of employment services in preventing youth homelessness by featuring national advocates and funders, including those with lived experience, in an interactive presentation.

Youth Homelessness Prevention Online Convening
This kickoff convening provided an understanding of youth homelessness prevention and the importance of using an intersectional approach to this work. Participants heard from Charles Rutheiser with the Annie E. Casey Foundation about their work efforts to rethink how they partner both internally and externally to tackle the intersections that most directly affect young people. Participants had the opportunity to then dive into a breakout session with partners working in one of our five specific areas outlined above. This virtual convening acted as the foundation for our subsequent webinars and discussions that we are hosting with key stakeholders and partners throughout 2022 and provide a space for participants to both learn and act collaboratively with their colleagues. 

Youth Homelessness Prevention Series: Centering Lived Expertise of Young People to Reimagine Systems
In this second session of the Youth Homelessness Prevention Learning & Action Series for Philanthropy, we highlighted the work of Think Of Us. During the February 1st convening, we had a chance in the System Involvement breakout room to meet the Chief Executive Officer of Think Of Us. Think Of Us is a Research and Development Lab for child welfare, transforming the system so that people with lived experience are at the center of designing, imaging, and building. They strategically engage projects across tech, participatory research, and state and federal partnership, driving system-wide solutions that bridge the gap between policy, practice, and people. 

2021 Funders Institute: Organizing Against Anti-Transgender Policies in the Fight for Housing Justice
In this session, we heard from national and grassroots organizers about the advocacy opportunities at the intersection of anti-transgender policies and housing and homelessness.

Washington State's Youth Homelessness Prevention Programs
In 2020, the 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. The Office of Homeless Youth is working to ensure safe and stable housing for all young people across the state of Washington so that they may thrive in the short and long term regardless of their location, age, race, ethnicity, neurodiversity, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation. Over the last year, a team of nonprofit leaders and young people have worked to identify 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.

Authentically Sharing Power with Young People
This webinar explored how YouthPrise has engaged young people in their mission to reduce disparities with and for Minnesota youth, involved discussion about the range of ways foundations can share power with young people authentically, and shared lessons learned and opportunities in engaging young people in the decision making process.  

Removing Barriers for Youth Experiencing Homelessness
In this webinar, Casey Trupin, JD from Raikes Foundation moderated a panel of representatives from the American Bar Association, Equal Justice Works, the Family and Youth Service Bureau, and Homeless Persons Representation Project. They explored the importance of eliminating obstacles and increasing legal services for this population. We discussed how funders can support this important work to help remove barriers for youth seeking to secure identification, school enrollment, housing, employment, and much more. 

Opportunities for Impact with Host Homes
In this webinar, we are joined by Larry Cohen and Orlando Roybal from Point Source Youth, Elvis Guzman from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, and Tammy Marsashlian from United Way of Greater Los Angeles to discuss the work that is happening in Baltimore and Los Angeles around Host Homes, how funders are currently engaging in this work, and where they are additional opportunities.

Blog Posts

Upstream Enough? Reflections on the Canada-US Funders Forum on Prevention of Youth Homelessness

Michael Durham, Funders Together Director of Networks, attended “cross-border learners’ exchange” between Canadian and U.S. foundations around youth homelessness prevention and documented his experience in Toronto, summarizing the two-day meeting itself and reflecting on what this means for the movement stateside.  

What Funders Can Learn From LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness
What can funders learn from LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness? Our CEO, Amanda Andere, joined Kahlib Barton, True Colors United; Rivianna Hyatt, True Colors United; and Kelli King-Jackson, The Simmons Foundation to discuss this at the Funders for LGBTQ Issues Funding Forward convening in March.   

Nothing About Us Without Us: Takeaways from the 2018 True Colors Fund Impact Summit
Lauren Samblanet, FTEH Program Membership Coordinator, reflects on key takeaways for philanthropy from the 2018 True Colors Fund Summit. 

Ending Youth Homelessness: What Funders Need To Know
The Foundation for Youth Success presents their initial learnings.

Facilitating Systems Change to End Youth Homelessness: Foundations for Youth Success Minnesota Convening Takeaways (Part 1)

Facilitating Systems Change to End Youth Homelessness: Foundations for Youth Success Minnesota Convening Takeaways (Part 2)

Redefining "Community-wide" Responses to Youth Homelessness
Read about what Katie Hong of the Raikes Foundation took away from the Foundations from Youth Success convening in Toronto

Youth Network Newsletters

• 2024 August Youth Network Newsletter
• 2024 May Youth Network Newsletter 
• 2024 February Youth Network Newsletter 
• 2023 November Youth Network Newsletter
• 2023 August Youth Network Newsletter
• 2023 May Youth Network Newsletter
  
• 2023 February Youth Network Newsletter
• 2022 November Youth Network Newsletter
• 2022 August Youth Network Newsletter
• 2021 December Youth Network Newsletter
• 2021 March Youth Network Newsletter
• 2020 December Youth Network Newsletter
• 2020 September Youth Network Newsletter
• 2020 June Youth Network Newsletter
• 2020 March Youth Network Newsletter

Resources From Our Members

“Yes to Yes” Washington State: Unaccompanied Youth and Young Adult (YYA) Homelessness Landscape Scan (2024)
Raikes Foundation, Schutz Family Foundation 

Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness in America (2023) 
Annie E. Casey Foundation

Preventing and Ending Youth and Youth Adult Homelessness: Lessons From Five Years of Systems-Focused Grantmaking in King County, Washington (2016)
Raikes Foundation

Hidden in Plain Sight: Homeless Students in America's Public Schools
Commissioned by the Raikes Foundation, created by Civic Enterprises and America's Promise Alliance

Our Journey to Advocacy
Campion Foundation

LGBTQ Youth Homelessness Funder Briefing [Video]
The Simmons Foundation

Partners in the Work

Chapin Hall

From 2015 to 2017, Chapin Hall conducted the most comprehensive examination to date of youth homelessness, Voices of Youth Count, which incorporates youth voices to develop achievable solutions. Since the Fall of 2017, Chapin Hall has published nine seminal reports on youth experiencing homelessness, which can be found below in the Research and Solutions Resources section.

A Way Home America

A national initiative to build the movement to prevent and end homelessness among young people. 

True Colors United

True Colors United implements innovative solutions to youth homelessness that focus on the unique experiences of LGBTQ young people.

Point Source Youth

Point Source Youth works to scale-up effective solutions to end youth homelessness by supporting interventions through regional experts and strong partnerships.

Youth Collaboratory

Youth Collaboratory provides consultation and technical assistance, as well as grant writing support to youth serving organizations and communities that are working to innovate, collaborate, and replicate effective practices. 

Research and Solutions Resources

Voices of Youth Count Nine Reports

1. Youth Homelessness in America

2. LGBTQ Youth Homelessness in America

3. Pregnant and Parenting Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America

4. Counting Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America

5. Youth Homelessness in Rural America

6. Missed Opportunities in Youth Pathways through Homelessness in America

7. Pathways from Foster Care to Youth Homelessness in America

8. Evidence on Interventions for Addressing Youth Homelessness

9. Education Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America

Federal Framework to End Youth Homelessness
February 01, 2013, USICH

Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness: A Coordinated Community Response
September 18, 2015

The Cost of Homelessness
2015, Foldes Consulting, LLC

A Way Home America Transition Plan- Actions and Strategies to End Youth Homelessness
2016, A Way Home America

Housing First for Youth

Challenges and Pilots in Youth Homelessness

Youth homelessness has a range of challenges and pilots that are catalyzing communities to collaborate across systems, as well as with young people experiencing homelessness. Learn more about these challenges and pilots. 

Policy Resources

Alone Without A Home
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty

AWHA Policy Agenda
A Way Home America 

State Index on Youth Homelessness
True Colors United

Policy Agenda
National Youth Forum on Homelessness

The Age Structure of Contemporary Homelessness: Evidence and Implications for Public Policy
January 2013, University of Pennsylvania

Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness
January 13, 2017

National Guidance on Emergency Homeless Services for Youth and Young Adults
April 2020

What can funders learn from LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness? Our CEO, Amanda Andere, joined Kahilb Barton, True Colors United; Rivianna Hyatt, True Colors United; and Kelli King-Jackson, The Simmons Foundation to discuss this at the Funders for LGBTQ Issues Funding Forward convening in March.

Lauren Samblanet, FTEH Program and Membership Coordinator, reflects on key takeaways for philanthropy from the 2018 True Colors Fund Summit in October.

Missed Opportunities: National Estimates highlights results from a national survey on unaccompanied youth homelessness in America. The study captures youth homelessness broadly, including sleeping on the streets, in shelters, running away, being kicked out, and couch surfing. Overall, findings show one in 10 young adults ages 18-25, and at least one in 30 adolescents ages 13-17, experience some form of homelessness unaccompanied by a parent or guardian over the course of a year. As a nation, we are missing opportunities to ensure that all young people can reach their full potential and contribute to stronger communities and economies across the country.

Read the full report here.

Source: Voices of Youth Count

Passion. Understanding. Curiosity. Intellect. It was all happening in one room during the 2018 Funders Forum. 

The 2018 Funders Forum was held in Los Angeles in conjunction with the National Conference on Ending Family and Youth Homelessness. Seventy individuals representing 34 different foundations and United Ways joined us as we explored philanthropy’s role in preventing and ending family and youth homelessness.

Three communities across the nation – Los Angeles, Austin and Cleveland – are currently amid the nation’s first 100-Day Challenge to end youth homelessness. Through these challenges, initiated by A Way Home America (AWHA), philanthropy’s essential role as conveners in our communities and across the nation is clear. Through this work, we continue to learn much about the power of philanthropy in bringing community partners together. 

Homelessness is more than a lack of a place to sleep tonight. For a young person, it means instability, fear, and often an inability to properly learn and prepare for adulthood. Increasingly, people who work with vulnerable youth are realizing that the lack of a safe and stable home makes it difficult for any other youth-focused program to be successful.

Over the past decade, we have made significant progress is ending and preventing homelessness among adult populations.  We have seen reductions in chronic and veteran homeless populations and some promising results around solutions to family homelessness.  In many instances, philanthropy has been a catalyst for change at the local and national levels.

In 2015, recognizing funders essential role, and the need for more learning and sharing around youth homelessness, Funders Together launched a two-year community of practice focused on preventing and ending youth homelessness. This community, Foundations for Youth Success (FYS), brought together philanthropic leaders – large national funders as well as those working at the community level – in a community of practice focused on funders’ role in identifying best practices and implementing effective solutions for our young people. Throughout this two-year initiative, members participated in regular virtual meetings and came together in person twice per year.

The link below connects to learnings and resources from Foundations for Youth Success and will be updated as additional materials are finalized. 

To join Foundations for Youth Success participants and other funders in continued learning, join FTEH's new Youth Network! Email Tabitha Blackwell at [email protected] to learn more.

Resource: Funders Role in Ending Youth Homelessness

From Our Members

Raikes Foundation's Youth and Young Adult Homelessness Strategy

Since 2011, preventing and ending youth homelessness in King County has been one of the Raikes Foundation’s three core grantmaking strategies. Learn more about their approach in this resource.

Priority Action Steps to Prevent and End Youth/Young Adult Homelessness: An Implementation Plan (2012) Raikes Foundation / Building Changes

Campion Foundation's Journey to Advocacy

Campion Foundation is guided by the belief that public policy work can have far more significant impact than we could ever do with foundation dollars. Learn more about their journey to advocacy in this resource.

LGBTQ Youth Homelessness Funder Briefing [Video]

In 2014, The Simmons Foundation hosted a Google Hangout for funders interested in ending LGBTQ youth homelessness. The foundation invited national funders to share why they got involved in LGBTQ youth homelessness, how they got board buy-in, and what risks they were willing to take. The video also features a formerly homeless young person who shares his experience with homelessness in Houston and what supports he wished had been offered to him.

Featured Members Working on Youth Homelessness

Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland- The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland works to improve the lives of those most in need with special attention to families, women and children living in poverty. The foundation works to end homelessness in Cuyahoga County and to reduce health disparities and improve educational opportunities in Cleveland’s Central Neighborhood. We spoke with Rebecca Gallant, director of communications for the Sisters of Charity Health System, about the Foundation's youth homelessness and affordable housing work and the important role philanthropy has in convening around homelessness.

Miami Homes for All- Miami Homes For All (formerly Miami Coalition for the Homeless) promotes community collaboration to prevent and end homelessness in South Florida through advocacy and philanthropy. Their work concentrates on advocacy, prevention, and informational services to enhance already existing community efforts and fill identifiable gaps. 

We spoke with Bobbie Ibarra, Executive Director of Miami Homes For All about the organization's rebranding, its focus on housing, and successful advocacy efforts and their work around youth homelessness.

Data and Solutions Resources

Federal Framework to End Youth Homelessness
February 01, 2013, USICH

The 2012 Amendment to Opening Doors, which includes the Federal Framework to End Youth Homelessness, was developed to specifically address what strategies should be implemented to improve the educational outcomes for children and youth, and the steps that need to be taken to advance the goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020.

Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness: A Coordinated Community Response
September 18, 2015

This document, from USICH, provides a preliminary vision for a coordinated response to ending youth homelessness.

Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness
January 13, 2017

Collaboratively with communities across America, USICH and federal partners developed a national vision for what it means to end homelessness, ensuring it is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness ensure all communities are working towards that goal. 

The Cost of Homelessness
2015, Foldes Consulting, LLC

Foldes Consulting, LLC, studied the economic burden of youth homelessness in Minnesota, focusing on the short- and long-term costs to taxpayers and society. The study examined comprehensive costs of more than 1,400 16-to-24 year olds who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless who visited YouthLink in 2011. The study found that all annual and support costs for the entire group can be covered if 89 youth (only 6.1% of the total young people in the study) were to earn enough so that they no longer need any public support, beginning at age 20.

A Way Home America Transition Plan- Actions and Strategies to End Youth Homelessness
2016, A Way Home America

As we anticipate the transition of the next presidential administration and new congress we are aiming to communicate in a common voice how to make progress on our goal of ending youth homelessness. To this end, over the spring and summer, the A Way Home America (AWHA) Policy Committee composed a Transition Plan – a document that identifies actions and strategies necessary to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness.  The National Youth Forum on Homelessness offered their input during drafting, input which is incorporated in the final document.  The AWHA Steering Committee endorsed this document in July.

The Transition Plan is intended to inform the next Presidential Administration, federal appointees, and members of congress on our collective goals to end youth and young adult homelessness. 

Housing First for Youth

Housing First is recognized as an effective and humane approach to ending homelessness. This document looks at how can it work to support young people who experience, or are at risk of, homelessness.

Other Resources

The Age Structure of Contemporary Homelessness: Evidence and Implications for Public Policy
January 2013, University of Pennsylvania

The Age Structure of Contemporary Homelessness: Risk Period or Cohort Effect?
June 2010, University of Pennsylvania

An Emerging Framework for Ending Unaccompanied Youth Homelessness
National Alliance to End Homelessness

National Network for Youth's Comprehensive Framework to End Youth Homelessness
July 2013, National Network for Youth

Costs Associated with First-time Homelessness
March 2010, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Addressing the Intersections of Juvenile Justice Involvement and Youth Homelessness: Principles for Change

Drugs, Homelessness, and Health: Homeless Youth Speak Out About Harm Reduction
2010, The Shout Clinic Harm Reduction Report

Employment Needs of Foster Youth in Illinois: Findings from a Midwest Study
2010, Chapin Hall

Ending Homelessness After Foster Care: Conference Report
October 2009, Common Ground

Identifying and Serving LGBTQ Youth: Case Studies of Runaway and Homeless Youth Program Grantees
February 2014, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Los Angeles Convening on Youth Homelessness: Progress, Gaps, Opportunities, and Challenges
February 8, 2012, The National Alliance to End Homelessness / The California Homeless Youth Project

On the Lifetime Prevalence of Running Away from Home
April 2010, Urban Institute

LGBTQ Homeless Youth Prevention Initiative- Houston Funders Toolkit

Needs Assessments for Homeless Students

National Alliance to End Homelessness Resources on Youth Homelessness
The National Alliance to End Homelessness

True Youth Count Toolkit
True Colors Fund

King County Youth of Color Needs Assessment
The Northwest Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian, & Gay Survivors of Abuse

Still looking for more information?  Let us know what you're interested in and we'll try to help.