Youth Homelessness Resources

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

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

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

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