HUD Announces $50M to Address Youth Homelessness, Improve Housing Placements

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is making $50 million in Youth Homelessness System Improvement (YHSI) grant funding available to communities nationwide.

HUD has announced new resources, technical assistance, and regulatory flexibilities to support their efforts to address homelessness, including among youth, people in unsheltered settings, and people in rural areas.

The grants will focus on systemic change to either improve or create response systems for youth at risk of or experiencing homelessness by funding projects that create and build capacity for Youth Action Boards; establish regional committees on youth homelessness to direct efforts across multiple systems including education, justice, and child welfare; collect and use data on at-risk youth and youth experiencing homelessness; develop strong leaders within a community; and improve the coordination, communication, operation, and administration of homeless assistance projects to better serve youth, including prevention and diversion strategies.

“HUD knows that ending homelessness requires commitment from many partners. Through HUD funding and technical assistance, HUD is cutting some of the red tape to help communities make tangible plans and take actionable steps to address homelessness among youth, people in unsheltered settings, and in rural areas,” said Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “The Biden-Harris Administration is taking a whole-of-government approach toward ending homelessness. We encourage our state and local partners to join us in this critical effort and leverage unprecedented levels of federal resources and flexibilities available to address this crisis.”

HUD is engaged in a multi-pronged technical assistance strategy to assist 62 Continuum of Care (CoC) communities and 139 Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) that received resources to address rural and unsheltered homelessness. The technical assistance will improve coordination of programs and services, support people with lived experience to serve in advisory roles, improve their engagement with people in unsheltered and rural settings, and improve connections to permanent housing with supportive and health services.

To further encourage and support PHAs to assist people experiencing homelessness, HUD issued a letter to PHAs encouraging them to take full advantage of HUD resources and regulatory flexibilities to support their work to address homelessness.

While other HUD and federal funds focus on specific housing and service needs of youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness, Youth Homelessness System Improvement (YHSI) grants will help communities build a strong, resilient, and equitable homelessness response system that is less siloed and will break down barriers for youth in crisis.

Recognizing that systemic change is often larger than one Continuum of Care, HUD is opening this $50 million notice of funding opportunity to include additional points for statewide or cross-community project proposals in order to emphasize the need for coordination across communities. The maximum amount of funding for each award type will be doubled for applications that cover geographic areas in two or more Continuums of Care (CoCs), or if the CoC covers the entire geography of the state.

YHSI Grants will add to the suite of HUD initiatives that support young people in gaining and maintaining stable housing, including the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP), the Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) Initiative, and the Family Unification Program (FUP).

In 2023, HUD awarded 62 communities with a package of resources to address homelessness among people in unsheltered settings and in rural areas. This package includes $486 million in grants to 62 Continuums of Care (CoCs) to fund permanent housing programs, homeless outreach and housing navigation, housing-related supportive services, data improvements, and system coordination, as well as $45 million to allocate over 3,300 Stability Vouchers to 135 public housing agencies that are partnering with the 62 CoCs.

Stability Vouchers can serve people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness, including those fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking.

The technical assistance strategy supports this funding by providing assistance, including:

• Housing Central Command: A select number of communities will be provided intensive support to implement Housing Central Command, an approach that uses emergency management structure and processes to resolve homeless encampments.
• Direct and Peer-to-Peer Technical Assistance for Grantee Communities Addressing Unsheltered Homelessness: All communities that received grants and vouchers to address unsheltered homelessness will receive a robust package of direct technical assistance, monthly community-to-community knowledge and practice exchange convenings, and trainings and expertise around specific topics.
• Technical Assistance on Use of Stability Vouchers to Assist People Experiencing Homelessness: HUD will provide the 135 PHAs and their partners with a series of webinars to support the use of Stability Vouchers to assist people experiencing homelessness.
• Tailored and Direct Technical Assistance to Grantees Communities Addressing Rural Homelessness.
• Federal Interagency Support with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) to ensure that all grantee communities are leveraging other federal programs and resources to support their efforts.

To read the full release, click here.