Helping Homeless Youth Come In From the Cold

Each year, an estimated 380,000 youth under 18 experience homelessness. Some homeless youth have been thrown out of their homes by a parent or caregiver. Many have run away from their homes or foster care situations because of factors such as abuse, neglect and domestic violence. Older youth often find themselves on the streets after aging out of the foster care system at 18. Once out on the streets, youth are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

Homeless youth are much more likely to become victims of crime, especially violent crimes. A study of homeless youth found that 76% had been victims of a crime in the previous 12 months, and that most homeless youth surveyed had been victims of violent crime-- far higher rates of crime victimization than those found among youth with housing. The study found that homeless youth of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth are victimized at even higher rates than other homeless youth. 

The Importance of Data.

 

Serving the needs of homeless youth is made more challenging by the difficulty in getting an accurate count of how many young people don’t have a safe place to live. Reliable information about how many homeless youth there are and what they need is essential for effective service provision; however, it is very difficult for researchers to find homeless youth willing to talk to them, much less get a clear picture of their needs.  This month the Urban Institute released a new report on the Youth Count! Initiative, highlighting promising practices in getting an accurate count of the homeless youth population. 

According to the report, surveys that ask youth about their housing situation rather than just asking if they are homeless yield better data since homeless youth often rely on a range of strategies to find shelter, including ‘couch surfing’ with friends or relatives, staying in shelters, sleeping in abandoned buildings, cars or other places. Broader survey questions about housing stability also allow researchers to identify the related needs of homeless youth—not only their need for stable housing, but also other needs that cause or result in youth homelessness.

Understanding the needs of homeless youth requires engaging with organizations that provide services to this population since youth may be more willing to connect with trusted service providers. Methods such as hosting magnet events and utilizing social media were found to be effective in finding homeless youth to participate in surveys. Engagement with organizations that serve LGBTQ youth was found to be particularly important, as LGBTQ youth may be reluctant to share personal information about their housing situation, gender identity and sexual orientation. 

Research conducted by the Williams Institute suggests that about 40% of homeless youth receiving services identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The leading cause of homelessness cited by LGBTQ youth is family rejection of their sexual orientation or gender identity resulting in youth running away or being forced to leave home by family members. Since research suggests that LGBTQ youth are both disproportionately likely to become homeless and more likely to be victimized while homeless, effective methods for assessing and serving the needs of LGBTQ youth is a key aspect of ending youth homelessness.

Trying to Survive is Not a Crime.

It is important to have an accurate count and assessment of the needs of youth with unstable housing; however, policies that encourage youth to reach out when they need help rather than further marginalizing them are also critical. Youth may resort to theft or other petty crimes to survive, and many trade ‘survival sex’ to meet basic needs such as food and shelter.  Homeless youth are often targeted by adults who offer them food and a place to stay and then coerce them into prostitution or other forms of exploitation. Homeless youth are frequently arrested for such survival crimes, including survivors of human trafficking. 

In many areas, even ‘acts of living’ such as sleeping, eating, sitting or panhandling in public places have been made illegal in an effort to drive homeless people from high-visibility public spaces.  Attempts to access or improvise clean drinking water or restroom facilities can lead to arrest. A report by a United Nations investigator found that homeless populations in the United States are often denied access to water and sanitation facilities in violation of international standards. Criminalizing such survival tactics makes it harder for youth to stay safe and meet their basic needs when they find themselves on the streets, and the fear of being arrested can discourage youth from seeking help.  A 2012 report from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness found that criminalizing acts of living through ‘zero tolerance’ approaches to homelessness are not effective and that “[c]ommunity residents, government agencies, businesses, and men and women who are experiencing homelessness are better served by solutions that do not marginalize people experiencing homelessness, but rather strike at the core factors contributing to homelessness.”

Strengthening Families and Supports for Youth.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), the key to addressing the core factors of homelessness is employing prevention and early intervention services for at-risk youth as early as possible. The NAEH highlights the importance of measures that strengthen families through counseling and resources so that youth have the support they need. Without such resources, factors such as family conflict, poverty, lack of affordable housing, inaccessible health care and systemic racism may result in youth being displaced from their families.

Ensuring that every child has a safe, permanent home is crucial, not just for reducing homelessness, but for ensuring their well-being. For young people aging-out of foster care, an effective support system is needed so that youth can access safe housing, health care, education opportunities and other supports.  A number of states including California, Illinois and the District of Columbia have extended foster care eligibility to age 21 in an attempt to ease this transition. Funded in part by the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, extended support is a positive step toward preventing youth from becoming homeless after aging out. A study found that Illinois foster youth were twice as likely to have attended college - and more than twice as likely to have completed at least one year of college by age 21- compared with former foster youth from neighboring states where eligibility ends at 18. Extended eligibility was also associated with delayed pregnancy, higher earnings, and a greater likelihood of receiving independent living services.

There are a number of interrelated factors that impact a child becoming homeless Addressing those factors in a comprehensive way through public policy is a critical part of addressing youth homelessness.  State policymakers can implement child welfare, health care, education and social safety net policies in their state that are more effective in preserving and strengthening families to ensure that children and youth have what they need to thrive. They can also strengthen laws and policies to prevent the criminalization and victimization of homeless young people and assist them in accessing the resources they need to survive homelessness and move forward as successful adults.

For more information on ways to increase exits from foster care to permanence and support youth transitioning from foster care, please visit PolicyforResults.org 

Helping Families Afford a Decent Place to Live

Housing insecurity can have serious negative impacts on the health of young children. Research shows that when a child’s home is overcrowded or their family has to move multiple times due to financial pressures, children are at risk of poor mental health, have difficulty coping with stress, difficulty with social relationships and suffer from poor-quality sleep. Research on housing insecurity states that:

·         Housing insecurity increases the risk for childhood injuries, elevated blood pressure, respiratory conditions, and exposure to infectious disease

·         A history of multiple moves is associated with an increased risk of substance abuse, behavior problems, poor school performance and teen pregnancy for older children and adolescents

·         Adolescents who experience school moves are 50% more likely not to graduate from high school

·         Multiple moves in childhood are associated with lower overall health in adulthood

·         In some cases inadequate housing is a contributing factor in an increased risk of children being removed from their homes by child welfare services 

In light of the negative impacts of housing insecurity on the health, well-being and life outcomes of children, effective housing policy is crucial to keeping children safe, healthy and well. This includes both policies to help homeless families find proper housing and policies to prevent families from losing their housing in the first place. However, budget cuts at the federal, state and local level mean that many local housing agencies are unable to meet rising demand for housing assistance.  Federal funding cuts to the Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly known as Section 8) due to sequestration means that thousands of eligible people including very low-income families, the elderly and people with disabilities are unable to get the assistance they need to afford the rent on a decent place to live.

Housing vouchers are a critical support for many working, poor families who live in areas where rents are high and affordable housing is in short supply. Under the program, families pay 30-40% of their income on rent and the voucher covers the remainder. As funding for the program has fallen, many housing authorities have closed waiting lists (which already number in the tens of thousands in many states) and have stopped issuing new vouchers. Some have laid-off staff to avoid cutting off assistance to families who currently have housing vouchers and might become homeless without them. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimated earlier this year that 125,000 households will lose their housing assistance due to sequestration.

People who have been on the waiting list for years and finally reached the top  are being told that they won’t be getting help after all; for instance, the New York City Housing Authority is no longer accepting new applications or processing new vouchers, and says that “[f]or Section 8 voucher holders who have identified an apartment and not yet scheduled an appointment to have the housing unit inspected and for those voucher holders who are still searching for an apartment, the vouchers will be terminated immediately.”  The Housing Authority of New Orleans had to recall housing vouchers recently issued to 700 families who had spent years on the waiting list and who now will have to find some other way to avoid homelessness. In Hartford, Connecticut 20 families have had their vouchers rescinded, as have 42 families in Fairfax County, Virginia. In El Paso, Texas, 100 families currently receiving assistance were told in March that their vouchers were being taken away and they would have to either leave their homes and move into public housing or figure out another way to keep a roof over their heads. In Washington DC, the United States Senate is currently considering the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill, which would provide funding for housing choice vouchers and other housing and homelessness measures; however, at the moment local housing authorities do not know if next year they will face further cuts or be able to issue vouchers again.

Receiving a Housing Choice Voucher for a family whose housing is insecure is an invaluable support.  However, even if a family is one of the lucky few who receive a voucher, in most states landlords can legally refuse to rent to potential tenants simply because they are receiving rental assistance. Due to the widespread discrimination against tenants receiving housing vouchers, in recent years some state and local policymakers have acted to reduce the obstacles preventing low-income families from finding a place to live. Earlier this month, Oregon passed a new law prohibiting discrimination against tenants who pay part of their rent with a housing voucher. Chicago has a long-standing city ordinance prohibiting such discrimination, and in May an amendment to Cook County’s Human Rights Ordinance extended these rights countywide. States such as Minnesota, Vermont and Massachusetts have similar tenant protections, as do some other municipalities including New York City.

Legal protections and housing assistance programs help to reduce barriers to housing security, but ensuring that affordable housing is available in communities is critical to the success of such measures. A number of states have created innovative policy approaches in recent years in an attempt to increase the availability of affordable housing so that families are not priced out of the market in their area. The Illinois Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act requires that at least 10% of housing in each community have affordable rents or mortgages. Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have similar statutes. Such policies help to encourage the expansion of affordable housing so that families are not forced to repeatedly move due to rising rents or remain in areas of concentrated poverty because no other affordable housing is available.

State policymakers should consider new approaches to increasing the availability of affordable housing – to ensure that working families aren’t “priced out” of the market. They can also increase the legal protections that prevent landlords from discriminating against families who use housing assistance to make ends meet. Approaches to ensuring safe, stable and affordable housing options for families not only provides a critical concrete support now – but leads to better health, education and other well-being outcomes for children in the future.  

For policy strategies that promote affordable housing, please visit PolicyforResults.org.

Rental Assistance and Economic Opportunity

In collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation’s How Housing Matters Initiative, Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is running a series of commentaries on How Housing Matters to Families and Communities. The series includes information on the intersection of housing and health, economic opportunity and education. The latest piece in the series is Rental Assistance: A Drag on Work or a Platform for Economic Opportunity? by Jeffrey Lubell from the Center for Housing Policy. In the piece Lubell comments on the concern expressed by some that receiving housing vouchers might have a negative impact on earnings. The issue brief states that there are aspects of housing assistance that promote and hinder work efforts and, over the long-term, these aspects more or less offset each other; resulting in no persistent long-term impact. The brief goes on to suggest that by addressing the aspects that negatively impact work and building up the positive ones that rental assistance could become a platform for greater economic opportunity.

To learn more about how housing impacts families and communities.

Visit our Investing in Community Change blog to read about the impact of housing and health in the post: Funders and Policymakers Increasingly Support Innovative Models to Address Housing and Health .

For results-based strategies to promote affordable housing visit PolicyforResults.

Historic Wealth Gaps and the Role of Housing Policy

The Pew Research Center’s report, Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics, describes the historic wealth gaps that currently exist and addresses some of the reasons for the dramatic growth of these gaps. The report states that the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households; amounting to the largest gaps in wealth ratios since the government began publishing this data a quarter century ago. These gaps are particularly concerning in that, as noted by the report, they are approximately twice the size of the ratios that existed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the recession that ended in 2009. The report states that between 2005 and 2009, median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households, 53% among black households and 16% among white households; amounting to the typical black household having just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009; the typical Hispanic household having $6,325 in wealth; and the typical white household having $113,149.

The report states that plummeting house values were the principal cause of the recent reduction in household wealth among all groups. However, the report goes on to state that the housing market bubble burst in 2006, and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009, took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than on whites. Furthermore, previous studies, including a study conducted by the Center for Responsible Lending, have found that blacks and Hispanics were 30 percent more likely than whites to be charged higher interest rates, even among borrowers with similar credit ratings. Policies that protect families from subprime lending and other predatory practices are critical to ensuring children grow up in safe, stable and economically successful families. The Center for Responsible Lending has several resources for policymakers to consider when working to address responsible lending practices, including efforts to prevent steering (or direct borrowers into more expensive loans), rules for regulating brokers, eliminating prepayment penalties and several other protections to assist families in developing and maintain assets, like owning a home.

To learn more about policy strategies to promote affordable housing, please visit PolicyforResults.org.