Efforts by city leaders and their partners to link young adults, ages 16 to 24, with educational credentialing options and work and job training often reveal that a young person has basic needs to meet first. Among these needs, housing ranks high.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a 2024 Point in Time Count estimate that more than 44,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 experience homelessness at any one time.
NLC’s Reengaging Opportunity Youth in the South Initiative
Three cities participating in NLC’s Reengaging Opportunity Youth in the South initiative have expanded local coalition efforts to focus on access to housing alongside education and jobs.
Examples include:
- Knoxville, Tennessee where the joint city-county Youth Action Board (YAB) — a group of local youth with experiences of homelessness — steered the development of a successful federal grant application in 2023. As part of the local Continuum of Care program, the Knoxville-Knox County Joint Office of Housing Stability and partners use the grant funds to underwrite a variety of approaches such as rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing and transitional housing for youth and young adults. The funds also support case management and cross-system navigators, housing supports, youth-focused performance measurement and youth-specific coordinated entry systems. In 2024, the Knoxville YAB helped obtain youth and young adult responses to a survey that will inform the design and development of a new citywide reengagement strategy.
- Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the reengagement planning team has initiated a dialogue about co-location of services with the Health, Housing and Homelessness Department, as that agency develops a multi-function Young Adult Housing Navigation Campus supported by a combination of federal and state funds.
- Dallas, Texas, where the newly launching reengagement center, the HYPE (Helping Young People Excel) Center for justice-involved opportunity youth and young adults, is exploring partnership options with Housing Forward, the Continuum of Care agency that received a $9.3 million federal grant in 2023 focused on improving local coordination and establishing a youth resource center.
Federal Grants Supporting Young Adults Experiencing Homelessness
The following examples describe a trio of federal grant resources through which any city — often in partnership with the local homelessness Continuum of Care agency and others — may add capacity to address housing and related support needs for youth and young adults.
- The Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) has provided more than $500 million in grants to prevent and end youth homelessness since 2016. For instance, in September 2023, the Knoxville-Knox County Continuum of Care received a grant of $1.8 million, as one of 16 sites nationwide that collectively received a total of $60 million. In October 2024, YHDP grants to 14 sites totaled $72 million. Notably, all YHDP communities establish Youth Action Boards, in which young people with lived experience lead the community effort to design, implement and improve programs and policies to end youth homelessness in their communities. Also of note, the US Interagency Council on Homelessness fields a team of regional advisers, each available to advise cities and their partners on regulation interpretation, program coordination policy recommendations and federal application assistance.
- The Foster Youth to Independence Initiative provides Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) with Housing Choice Vouchers good for up to 36 months of rental assistance, for individuals ages 18 to 24 who have left foster care. PHA applications proceed in partnership with local public child welfare agencies. The September 2024 round of FYI grants sent $12.5 million to 21 sites; housing agencies may also apply for vouchers on a rolling basis.
- Recognizing the need for scaled-up and more efficient efforts to reduce youth and young adult homelessness, HUD also makes Youth Homelessness System Improvement grants. In June 2024, grants to 38 sites in 26 states totaled $51 million, with the aim of assisting each site to improve existing response systems for youth homelessness, or to establish and implement a new youth homelessness response system.
Learn More
National League of Cities’ Ending Homelessness: A Guide for Local Governments provides an overview of the homelessness crisis facing U.S. communities, why it’s happening and how cities can work with partners to shape solutions.
About the Author
Using Disaggregated Data to Improve Delivery of Homelessness Services and Housing
- Hannah Olsen
The Path Home in Newark, NJ: Strategies to End Chronic Homelessness in Cities
Explore New NLC University Courses
NLCU: Supporting Small-Scale Development
Ending Homelessness: A Guide for Local Governments
