Resources for Homeless Youth Service Providers

This page provides guidance documents from HUD and identifies agencies and organizations with whom HUD partners to assist homeless youth service providers.

Planning Your Coordinated Community Approach

Coordinated Entry for Youth Brief

This brief provides an overview of the four Coordinated Entry core elements (Access, Assessment, Prioritization, and Referral) to Continuums of Care and youth housing and service providers.

COVID-19 Homeless System Response: Special Population Rehousing Strategy: Youth and Young Adults

This document discusses rehousing youth and young adults as a critical component of an Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) recipient's COVID-19 response and an important factor to consider when awarding funding provided through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Ending Youth Homelessness: A Guidebook Series

This series of three guidebooks are designed for CoC stakeholders and practitioners to use directly and to engage essential local partners in efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness. The guidebook topics include:

  • Overview Fact Sheet: Describes what the guidebooks are, their purpose, and a brief overview of each guidebook.
  • System Planning: Provides strategies for developing a youth homelessness system and leadership.
  • Mainstream System Collaboration: Provides strategies for engaging mainstream sectors such as child welfare, education, workforce, justice, housing, health, early childhood education, community organizations and mainstream benefits.
  • Promising Program Models: Provides strategies for youth-specific program models.

Ending Youth Homelessness: Building Blocks of a Youth System Webinar

SNAPS and technical assistance partners ICF and Homebase hosted a webinar that focused on the core components of developing a coordinated community response and how communities can start now on youth system planning. It also reviewed the components and actions needed for the development of a strong youth homelessness response system.

Ending Youth Homelessness: Flyer Announcing Additional Products

This marketing flyer announces the suite of products, current and upcoming, geared toward ending youth homelessness.

Rapid Re-Housing for Youth Suite

This suite of tools and products on Rapid Re-Housing for Youth includes a Jump Start Tool, a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and a Checklist. Coming soon will be a Toolkit.

SNAPS Building Your Youth Planning Team Webinar

SNAPS and its technical assistance partners, True Colors United and Abt Associates, hosted this webinar focused on building an effective system to end youth homelessness.

SNAPS Partnering with YHDP TA Webinar

SNAPS and its technical assistance partners hosted this recorded webinar focused on how to best utilize technical assistance if your community is awarded YHDP funding.

Using a Housing First Philosophy When Serving Youth

This brief provides an overview of the Housing First philosophy and how it applies to youth-serving projects.

Youth Collaboration

Emerging Practices in Supportive Service Only Projects

YHDP has created an opportunity for communities to develop new Supportive Service Only (SSO) projects dedicated to meeting the needs of youth and young adults experiencing homelessness. This spotlight highlights SSO projects in YHDP.

Guide for Engaging Youth in Decision Making

This guide provides guidance on how to engage youth in the decision-making process and in the development of projects.

SNAPS Youth Collaboration 102 Webinar

SNAPS and its technical assistance partner, True Colors United, hosted this webinar focused on funding, recruitment and retention, undoing adultism, and leadership from within.

SNAPS Youth Collaboration 201 Webinar

SNAPS and its technical assistance partner, True Colors United, hosted this webinar focused on equity in youth collaboration, Youth Action Board (YAB) governance best practices, YAB sustainability, and power sharing.

The Gab on YABS: Community Fact Sheets

In the fall of 2019, the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC) surveyed seven communities to ask about the role and functioning of youth leadership in their efforts to address youth homelessness — their strengths and challenges, as well as the small details that push them forward like facilitation practices, budget, and recruitment efforts. The results are shared in this series of downloadable community fact sheets and topic spotlights, showing diverse strategies, challenges, and opportunities.

The Magic at the Table: Building Your Youth Planning Team

Ending youth homelessness in any community requires significant planning. This document covers how to assemble a team to lead an inclusive and far-reaching planning process.

YAB Pathways to Leadership

This document spotlights two communities for how they have been able to foster youth leadership, as well as for lessons learned that may provide guidance for other communities seeking to establish effective youth collaboration in their local communities.

Youth Collaboration Roadmaps

The Youth Collaboration 102 Roadmap is designed for communities, agencies, individuals, or housing service entities that have already developed an understanding of the core principles of Youth Collaboration. The roadmap discusses funding, recruitment and retention, undoing adultism, and leadership from within.

The Youth Collaboration 201 Roadmap is designed for communities, agencies, or entities that have already developed an understanding of the core principles of Youth Collaboration. This roadmap discusses equity in youth collaboration, Youth Action Board (YAB) governance best practices, YAB sustainability, and power sharing.

Youth Collaboration Webinar

HUD and True Colors Fund hosted a webinar that explored youth collaboration in housing instability and homelessness.

Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP)

For all YHDP Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) related information, view the YHDP page.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (Public Law 114-113)

The authority to launch YHDP comes from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 (Public Law 114-113), which appropriated $33 million to HUD "to implement projects to demonstrate how a comprehensive approach to serving homeless youth, age 24 and under, in up to 10 communities, including at least four rural communities, can dramatically reduce youth homelessness." The act also appropriated $5 million to HUD "to provide technical assistance on youth homelessness, and collection, analysis, and reporting of data and performance measures under the comprehensive approaches to serve homeless youth, in addition to and in coordination with other technical assistance funds provided under this title," and a further $2.5 million to HUD "for homeless youth program evaluations conducted in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services."

YHDP Data Collection and Grants Management

Indirect Cost Toolkit for CoC and ESG Programs

This toolkit has been developed to assist recipients and subrecipients under the CoC and ESG programs to better understand indirect costs—such as facility or administrative costs—and how they can be calculated and charged under these programs. Recipients can use this toolkit to make an informed decision concerning the best method for computing and seeking reimbursement for indirect costs under ESG and CoC program grants.

Introduction to Youth Specific Data

This document covers how the use of quality data can help inform virtually every part of a community’s work in preventing and ending youth homelessness.

YHDP APR, QPR, and Collaborative Dashboard Webinar - Session 1

This webinar focused on YHDP APR submissions for community members who are new to Sage or who will be completing the APR report in Sage.

YHDP HMIS Manual

The YHDP HMIS Manual is intended to support data collection and reporting efforts of HMIS Lead Agencies and YHDP recipients. This manual provides information on HMIS program setup and data collection guidance specific to YHDP.

YHDP Reporting Guidance for the Sage HMIS Reporting Repository

YHDP projects funded in round four and forward must provide quarterly reports. This document provides guidance on completing YHDP APRs and QPRs.

HUD Policy Messages

CoC Competition Focus: FY 2016 Policy Priority to End Youth Homelessness

In this message, HUD provides guidance on strategies to effectively end youth homelessness, one of the policy priorities for the FY 2016 CoC Program Competition.

SNAPS In Focus: Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness

In this SNAPS In Focus message, HUD provides community examples, best practices, and resources to assist communities with preventing and ending youth homelessness.

SNAPS In Focus: Youth Homelessness

This SNAPS In Focus message discusses HUD's work with federal partners to improve the federal response to youth homelessness.

SNAPS In Focus: Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program

This SNAPS In Focus message discusses the publication of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program NOFA.

Defining Youth Homelessness

HUD has produced several documents that may be useful for current youth homeless service providers and those interested in serving youth. Choose from the documents below to get started.

Category 3 of Homeless Definition Guidance

This Notice provides guidance to Continuums of Care (CoC) and applicants to the FY2012 CoC Program for Transitional Housing (TH) or Supportive Services Only (SSO) projects, regarding the limitations imposed by the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act.

Determining Homeless Status of Youth

This guide uses hypothetical scenarios to help providers understand how youth meet HUD’s definition of homelessness and what documentation is needed to establish homeless status for youth.

HUD's Homeless Definition as it Relates to Children and Youth

To assist providers and stakeholders that serve homeless youth and have questions about eligibility, this document provides an overview of HUD’s definition of homelessness, how it affects eligibility for emergency shelter and other resources, and the documentation that HUD requires.