Reform Efforts
Crisis Housing Reform Efforts
To mitigate the harm of large congregate shelters and offer more crisis housing options to youth and young adults, advocates have pushed several reform efforts. Although these reforms have led to thousands of more youth gaining access to immediate housing while in crisis, the efforts often still rely on congregate shelter options that lack privacy and safety and are still not built to scale to ensure all young people have access to the option of their choice.
Examples of Crisis Housing Reform Efforts:
Shelters that exclusively serve youth and young adults, offer more comprehensive services and are operated using housing first principles, including having low or no barriers to entry and to retaining the shelter bed. Although these options offer a less harmful alternative, there are still few of these shelters in existence around the country and even those with the best Housing First policies still end up not being welcoming places for all youth, particularly Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Queer youth.
Emergency transitional housing that offers more private space, similar to an independent apartment or private room in a house, and moves young people quickly to safe and stable housing. Although this option offers young people crisis housing with more privacy and dignity, there are far too few units to meet the need, leading to eligibility and prioritization requirements that leave many young people locked out of these options.
Basic Center Programs (BCPs) that return to the original intent of the program - supporting youth and their families to remain together and reunify with supports and utilizing small, home-like shelters as a last resort. Some communities are doing this and these reforms include offering host homes of a youth’s choice, more robust and longer term family supports, and youth-driven case planning.
Host home programs that recruit volunteer hosts who can offer crisis housing options for youth and young adults in their homes. This has proved to be a successful option for some youth but many others have rejected the idea because it takes away their agency to live with someone that is known and trusted.