Panel Paper:
Homelessness Among Youth Aging out of Foster Care
Saturday, November 5, 2016
:
10:15 AM
Fairchild West (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
In Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Administration have pledged to end youth homelessness in 2020. To accomplish this goal, the nation needs to better prevent youth homelessness from occurring, and provide services to youth that become homeless to help them move to safe and stable housing. One group of youth that are at risk of homelessness is youth aging out of foster care. Estimates vary widely, but between 11 and 37 percent of youth aging out of foster care experience homelessness after they transition. Understanding the risk and protective factors associated with homelessness among youth aging out of foster care can help effectively target prevention and other services in order to reduce the share that experience homelessness. This paper uses information from the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) to identify the share of youth from the foster care system that experience homelessness by age 21, and explores factors associated with increased risks of homelessness among youth aging out of foster care. The NYTD was developed to track the independent living services States provide to youth and develop outcome measures that may be used to assess States' performance in operating their independent living programs. NYTD provides administrative information on services provided, combined with surveys of youth in foster care at age 17 and follow-up surveys of the same youth at ages 19 and 21. The first cohort now has 21-year-old survey data recently available. Where possible, based on sample sizes and reporting issues, the paper also explores state differences in rates of homelessness and risk factors for homelessness.
