Editor's Note: Washington's Office of Homeless Youth recently completed the state's first plan to solve youth homelessness. Casey Trupin - a program officer at the Raikes Foundation - chaired the office's advisory committee and helped shape this important new path forward for the state. He offers his thoughts on the plan and its significance in the letter below.Read More

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Raikes Foundation today announced a new partnership to help Washington’s 35,000 homeless students find the support and stability they need to thrive. The two foundations have joined with the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Campion Foundation to collectively commit $1.86 million to the effort, known as Schoolhouse Washington.Read More

Reposted with permission from YouthCare.org.Read More

It may be your daughter’s best friend. It may be the captain of the football team. It may be the new student who just transferred in. It may be the one who has lived in your neighborhood for as long as you can remember. What we know is that the vast majority of public schools serve at least one student experiencing homelessness. In fact, the average public school has 14 students facing this crisis.Read More

There are more than 35,000 homeless K-12 students in Washington—a population with one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the state. Historically, barely half of these students graduate with their peers. Now, thanks to legislation passed by the Washington State Legislature and signed into law last week by Governor Inslee, homeless students are more likely to receive the support and stability they need to succeed in school and life.Read More

Yesterday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee took an historic step to improve the lives of young people in our state. The governor issued an executive order to begin the process of creating a Department of Children and Families in our state. Such a change would ensure that Governor Inslee, and future Washington governors, hear frequently and directly about issues affecting our most vulnerable children and families.Read More

As with most students, when my first-grader leaves school each day she comes home to the same safe place every night. Statistics show that this is likely not the case for at least one of her classmates. One in every 32 students in Washington is identified as homeless, or roughly one per class and 15-20 students per school.Read More

Each year more than 5,000 unaccompanied youth and young adults in King County experience homelessness. Since 2011, the Raikes Foundation has worked closely with key partners to change this. When we began our work, we found a community of passionate advocates and experienced service providers poised to take an important step toward a true systems-level response. Together, this community has made significant progress to raise awareness of the issue and align our collective efforts under a regional action plan that’s data-driven and youth-informed. Read More

If you’ve spent any amount of time with me or my Raikes Foundation colleagues, you’ve likely heard us emphasize that youth homelessness is a community-wide issue that demands a community-wide response. It’s an important refrain that reflects our emphasis on collaborative, systems-level solutions. As simple as that saying is, though, I’m regularly intrigued by how much our understanding of it continues to evolve.Read More

I’ve written before about how important it is to truly understand a problem before you can solve it. You need to know its full scope, its causes, its exacerbating factors and its consequences. Unfortunately, youth homelessness is often an invisible and undercounted problem.Read More