OHY is charged with leading efforts to address youth and young adult homelessness as it is occurring and preventing new episodes of homelessness. Prevention is central to OHY’s goal of ensuring safe and stable housing. Although it is traditionally thought of more exclusively in upstream terms, such as preventing family conflict and systems involvement, or further downstream efforts related to preventing deeper system involvement, out-of-home placement, or discharge from systems of care into homelessness, it can also occur much further down the continuum for youth actively experiencing homelessness.
Housing is key. We cannot prevent and effectively end youth homelessness without housing at the core of our approach.
Prevention continuum
- Universal Prevention: Education for larger population of the state, youth, and families.
- Primary Prevention: Supporting youth and families prior to system involvement to reduce risk of housing instability for youth.
- Early Secondary Prevention: Early system (CPS or Juvenile or Criminal Justice) interaction that does not lead to out of home placement or incarceration
- Later Secondary Prevention: Preventing deeper system involvement and housing instability.
- Tertiary Prevention: Preventing housing instability for those exiting the system. Ensuring those who are experiencing homelessness move quickly into safe and stable housing and receive appropriate support.
The state’s strategic plan for youth homelessness prevention, Shifting Services and Systems to Prevent Youth Housing Instability (PDF), was co-designed with diverse lived experts and caregivers from urban, rural and tribal areas of the state who reflect the youth and young adults who are disproportionately represented in the unstably housed population. The plan makes recommendations along four main thematic pillars:
- Supporting whole family well-being
- Universal support for basic human rights
- Eliminating racism in systems and supporting youth and families impacted by them
- Shifting resources to Black, Indigenous and people of color communities
OHY’s prevention work has evolved to identify and address how publicly funded systems of care impact young people’s housing stability and the fundamental causes of family fracture. As defined by RCW 43.330.720, systems of care include:
- Child welfare
- Inpatient behavioral health
- Juvenile justice (county and state)
- Programs administered by OHY
Interagency collaboration and legislative investments in systems of care prevention efforts have focused on improving effective transition planning, community-based services, and housing. Also see DSHS Research and Data Analysis Division’s 2024 report, Homelessness Among Youth Exiting Systems of Care in Washington State (PDF), for more information.
Prevention Workgroup
OHY and the Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) co-lead a prevention workgroup comprised of identified state agencies, community-based organizations, and young people and families with lived experience of housing instability or involvement with child welfare, legal, carceral, or inpatient behavioral health systems.
The workgroup oversees implementation of the following youth homelessness prevention efforts and fulfills Governor Directive 17-01 for an interagency workgroup:
- Shifting Services and Systems to Prevent Youth Housing Instability (PDF), the state strategic plan
- Chapter 157, Laws of 2018 (PDF), focused on youth exiting publicly funded systems of care
- Chapter 312, Laws of 2019 (PDF), focused on alternatives to incarceration for status offenses
- Chapter 151, Laws of 2023 (PDF), focus on DCYF’s Family Reconciliation Services (FRS)
- Other related state initiatives
The Youth Homelessness Prevention Steering Committee (YHPSC) brings the lens of lived experience to the Prevention Workgroup and all facets of this work. The YHPSC is supported by a community-based organization and comprised of members reflective of the youth homelessness population across the state, particularly those most disproportionately impacted by homelessness and state systems.
Committee members must be Washington state residents with a desire to create a world where no young person experiences homelessness, as well as meeting one of the below criteria:
- Young people, between the ages of 18-30, who have experienced homelessness, housing instability and/or systems involvement between the ages of 12-24. Systems involvement includes things like foster care, inpatient behavioral health facilities, juvenile detention, juvenile rehabilitation, county jail and state prisons, OR
- Caregivers (bio, kin, foster or informal) who have supported a young person, between the ages of 12-24, with the above-mentioned experiences. Professional experience in providing care to a young person through employment does not count as a caregiver.
Service coordination
OHY uses a public health approach to look across a continuum to ensure prevention can happen at multiple levels. OHY defines youth homelessness prevention as the immediate provision of housing and supports to youth experiencing homelessness or housing precarity, or the immediate protection of housing, with supports, for youth at-risk of homelessness.
OHY, DCYF, and the Health Care Authority (HCA) developed a webinar series with co-presenters from various partner agencies to dive deep into prevention efforts throughout the state.
- Part 1: Introduction recording 4/9/24 (mp4) – slides 4/9/24 (PDF)
- Part 2: Tertiary Prevention recording 7/10/24 (mp4) – slides 7/10/24 (PDF)
- Part 3: Secondary Prevention recording 12/9/24 (mp4) – slides 12/9/24 (PDF)
- Part 4: Universal and Primary – coming soon!
OHY hosts the Prevention Community of Practice, which serves as a virtual platform for providers across the state to build community with one another, share best practices and troubleshoot common barriers, all as it relates to the prevention of youth homelessness. This learning community is open to anyone in the state who provides services to young people experiencing homelessness.
Timeline
The following highlights some significant events related to OHY but does not fully capture all of Washington state’s efforts in investing in and advocating for youth homelessness prevention.
Chapter 157, Laws of 2018 (PDF) sets the goal that beginning January 1, 2021, no young person will be discharged from a publicly funded system of care into homelessness.
See 2023 Progress Report: Substitute Senate Bill 6560 (PDF) for more information.
Chapter 312, Laws of 2019 (PDF) limits detention to a maximum of 72 hours (previously 7 days) for status offenders who violate a court order. Status offenses are behaviors that are prohibited under law only because an individual is a minor, such as truancy, breaking curfew or running away from home.
OHY provided priority recommendations for responding to SB 6560 in Legislative Report Improving Stability for Youth Exiting Systems of Care (PDF), highlighting the critical need for effective transitions from care, community connections and housing.
The 2020 Washington State Legislature and the Raikes Foundation each invested $75,000 to support the development of a draft strategic plan addressing the issue of youth homelessness and other related negative outcomes.
OHY convened a workgroup of representatives from state agencies that touch young people’s lives, community-based organizations, and young people and families who have lived experience of homelessness or systems involvement to develop the 2021 Preliminary Strategic Plan: Prevention of Youth Homelessness (PDF).
This preliminary plan outlined the coordination of existing efforts, demographic data for young people experiencing housing instability, the funding landscape for prevention efforts, and recommendations on policies and promising interventions.
OHY later worked with by-and-for organizations to recruit youth and caregivers with lived experience to co-design Shifting Services and Systems to Prevent Youth Housing Instability (PDF), the final strategic plan. This strategy touches almost every corner of state government with recommendations that call for the significant overhaul of the systems that serve young people.
Chapter 137, Laws of 2022 and related financial provisions expanded OHY resources towards prevention efforts including:
- Systems of Care (SOC) grants for programs specifically focused on serving youth as they transition from publicly funded systems of care back into stable housing in the community.
- Youth Diversion Infrastructure Project (YDIP) providing flexible funds and person-centered services for youth and young adults exiting systems of care, based on Centralized Diversion Fund model and through partnership with Building Changes.
- Housing Stability for Youth in Courts (H-SYNC) funded to expand the UW CoLab’s H-SYNC pilot program grant and to 6 counties. The intervention proactively identifying juvenile court involved youth/families who may be at-risk of homelessness
- Additional OHY capacity to support service coordination, strategic plan implementation and participation on the Youth and Young Adult Housing Response Team (YYAHRT), an interagency team that responds to complex cases involving young people at-risk of homelessness upon exit from a system of care. This team is further used as a lever to identify system gaps and elevate these issues through the appropriate channels.