HUD Funding Opportunity Advances Implementation of Coordinated Community Response for Youth

To end homelessness among unaccompanied youth by 2020, every community must build a coordinated community response in which a full range of programs and interventions for youth are aligned into an effective system that is well-coordinated, data-informed, and effectively managed across community programs in order to achieve positive outcomes. That system must be shaped by new ideas and innovative approaches to address the unique developmental needs of youth.

Today, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) to competitively award $33 million for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP). The YHDP will provide up to 10 communities, including at least four rural communities, with resources to design and implement a coordinated community approach to ending youth homelessness. Applications for the YHDP are due November 30, 2016 at 11:59:59 p.m. EDT.

We encourage all communities to apply for the YHDP. The HUD NOFA application is designed to help communities reevaluate their relationships with partners, identify additional community resources, and redesign governance structures in order to set communities on a path to building a coordinated community response to prevent and end youth homelessness. Applications must be submitted by a community’s Continuum of Care (CoC) Collaborative Applicant, and must be co-developed with a broad array of community partners, including a youth advisory board, a state or local child welfare agency, youth housing and services providers, local school districts, workforce development organizations, law enforcement, judges, corrections departments, and/or other systems and sectors. 

Over the coming weeks, technical assistance resources, including guidebooks, toolkits, webinars, and other resources will be made available on the YHDP website to support communities as they develop their applications. USICH will also host a webinar on the NOFA on September 15.

Communities selected as demonstration program sites will focus on advancing critical system changes, including:

• Ensuring the CoC is actively integrating youth-serving providers, incorporating a broader array of new perspectives, and developing shared values, goals, and objectives
• Gathering more and better data, and creatively leveraging existing data sets, to establish need and model the strategies needed for success
• Developing or adapting governance structures that can drive change and mobilize necessary resources

HUD is also looking for applicants to embrace important values and characteristics of a systemic response, including:

• Focusing on achieving the four core outcomes for youth described in the Federal Framework to End Youth Homelessness: stable housing, permanent connections, education and employment, and social-emotional well-being
• Addressing the unique vulnerabilities and experiences of special populations, including LGBTQ youth, youth under 18, pregnant and parenting youth, youth involved in juvenile justice and foster care systems, and victims of sexual trafficking and exploitation
• Embracing best practices for youth, including positive youth development, trauma-informed care, and family engagement strategies
• Providing immediate access to safe, secure and stable housing without preconditions, youth choice in housing and service provision, individualized and youth-driven supports, and social and community integration
• Implementing a coordinated entry system with youth appropriate processes and dedicated resources

Selected communities will develop a housing and service project model and will be able to submit a corresponding request for up to 30% of their project funding before approval of their coordinated community plan. Selected communities will also receive additional technical assistance and materials to help guide the planning and implementation of a coordinated community response. At the conclusion of the demonstration, federal partners will compile the lessons learned and disseminate them to state and local homelessness stakeholders across the country.

For additional information, please visit HUD’s YHDP website.