Ending youth homelessness: Connecticut’s plan

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Jennifer A. Smiith

In 2014, Youth Catalytics facilitated a ten-month planning process in Connecticut aimed at designing a comprehensive service system for homeless and unstably housed youth. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has prioritized youth homelessness in recent years, and states are beginning to tackle the question of how they can ensure that all young people have safe and stable housing. The work we did was contracted by the Center for Children’s Advocacy and Partnership for Strong Communities with funding from Melville Charitable Trust, and included a series of meetings with three work groups—ones focused on housing, data integration, and services and supports for young people. The result of this work was a formal plan that will act as a road map for CT’s Opening Doors initiative.

While all state Continuums of Care have been tasked with intentionally addressing youth homelessness, some states are further along than others. Having recently released the new Opening Doors for Youth Plan places Connecticut at the forefront of a select group of states that are prioritizing this work and actively building capacity to serve youth and young adults in a coordinated way.

Connecticut’s document was informed by work group discussions, input from youth consultants, and our own research into other efforts to end youth homelessness around the country. One recommendation that came out of this research, for example, was the creation of a statewide coordinator position. Having a dedicated person whose job it is to oversee the implementation of system changes and ensure that available services are low-barrier and developmentally appropriate for youth is key to making sure Connecticut reaches its goals. Other states would do well to follow their lead in prioritizing funding that supports not just direct services to youth but also the administrative capacity to coordinate efforts across regions and advocate for legislative or system changes.

Other states would do well to follow their lead in prioritizing funding that supports not just direct services to youth but also the administrative capacity to coordinate efforts across regions and advocate for legislative or system changes.

As an early-phase document, the plan also emphasizes the need for better data on homeless youth and strategies for evaluating the impact of changes on young people. In fact, one of the first steps taken by the data work group was to organize Connecticut’s first-ever rigorous homeless youth count, which took place in early 2015. This statewide count process included a unique element—a school survey that uses peer reports to estimate the number of unstably housed youth in any given district. The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness contracted with Youth Catalytics to coordinate this survey, based on our success piloting the instrument in other New England states. In Connecticut, we surveyed students in 11 schools, and the findings — consistent with our early studies — indicate high numbers of youth living in unstable circumstances. See more about our homeless and unstably housed youth estimation project in Connecticut.