More than just a seat at the table: the power of youth voice in ending youth homelessness in the United States

ABSTRACT

Each year, over 600 youth under the age of 25 experience literal homelessness in Austin, Texas. Of these youth, 76% have a history of involvement with foster care or the juvenile justice system—far exceeding the rates of system involvement observed among homeless youth in other large communities in the United States (approximately 54%; Voices of Youth Count, 2017). Recently, Austin was selected by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development as one of ten communities nationwide to participate in the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP), a federal initiative designed to effectively end youth homelessness by 2020. Youth with lived experience are central players in the development and implementation of Austin's response to the youth homelessness crisis. A group of twelve of these youth (the “Austin Youth Collective to End Youth Homelessness,” or AYC) serve as key decision-making partners within the Austin YHDP team. Representatives of the AYC are deeply involved at every level of the community planning process, from the development of youth-centric housing options to system redesign efforts to ensure that youth do not exit the foster care or juvenile justice systems to homelessness. The article provides an overview of the development and contributions of the AYC—including their programmatic recommendations and advocacy work—as well as key recommendations for communities looking to leverage youth voice at the systems level.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• governance
• practice
• youth voice
• homelessness

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mya Randall, Erin Whelan, and Susan McDowell for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth A. Schoenfeld is the Director of Research and Evaluation at LifeWorks and a Clinical Affiliate at The University of Texas at Austin.

Kate Bennett is the Director of Public Grants at LifeWorks.

Katy Manganella is the Director of the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) at the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition.

Gage Kemp is a founding member of the Austin Youth Collective to End Youth Homelessness.

ORCID

Elizabeth A. Schoenfeld http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8089-6120

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [grant number TX048246J031600].