Every year more than 4.2 million young people, ages 13 to 25, experience homelessness in the United States. Overwhelmingly, they are youth of color and young people who identify as LGBTQ.
We believe that every young person deserves a safe, stable place to call home, and we’re working to make that vision reality. To end youth homelessness, we need to both prevent young people from becoming homeless and respond rapidly, with culturally appropriate, trauma-informed services when a young person becomes unsafe or unsheltered.
We work with our partners to help schools, child welfare services, and the juvenile justice system recognize the early warning signs of young people in crisis and prevent homelessness. We also work to ensure the community has the systems and tools in place to respond effectively if young person does find themselves in crisis.
Since 2011, our goal has been to make youth homelessness a rare, brief and one-time occurrence for young people. In 2015, we expanded our efforts from King County, WA to Washington state and the nation. We see our role as a convener and catalyst. We bring together young people who have experienced homelessness, homelessness providers, community organizations and government partners to learn what’s working, share promising practices and drive more resources to youth.
Our strategy is two-pronged:
1) Prevention and early intervention: Reach at-risk young people and prevent them from ever experiencing homelessness.
2) Rapid response to crisis: If a young person does experience homelessness, ensure the community has the resources and tools to respond rapidly and effectively.
Prevention and early intervention
We know that ending youth homelessness starts with preventing homelessness from ever occurring. Our public schools, child welfare services, and juvenile justice system can and should play an important role in preventing young people from becoming homeless. These systems are ideally positioned to identify the early warning signs of young people in crisis and connect them with services that can stabilize their housing situations or home life.
Rapid response to crisis
Even one night on the streets can derail a young person's future. The faster crisis response systems can identify and match a young person with developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed services, the sooner that young person can get back on a path toward stability. We foster collaboration between a variety of stakeholders so that communities can better understand young people’s needs, align available services, and respond quickly with safe housing.
Partnerships and advocacy
Another essential aspect of our strategy is ensuring that young people who have experienced homelessness are heard and seen by policymakers. We believe that lifting up the voices of those most impacted by homelessness is essential to achieving justice and equity, as well as generating the systemic change needed to end homelessness.
We partner with public and private leaders in Washington state and across the nation to fund community action and raise awareness of the urgency of ending youth homelessness. We also support youth-led advocacy efforts to end homelessness at the local, state, and federal level.
We have seen positive momentum to address youth homelessness in our state and across our country. Collectively, we have better data and research, more knowledge about innovative programs and practices, and increased government capacity and commitment to address youth homelessness at the local, state, and national levels. The Raikes Foundation is proud to be a contributor to these community-led efforts with support from other foundations, service providers, policymakers, and young people. We all recognize that our journey is not finished, but we are on our way to making youth and young adult homelessness a rare, brief, and a one-time occurrence. Here are some of our proudest accomplishments to date.
Supporting a coordinated community response to address youth homelessness in King County
Since 2011, we have been supporting a coordinated community response to address youth homelessness in King County, which got a big boost in 2017 when the county was one of 10 communities selected by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Agency to be a Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) site. The $5.4 million in annual grantmaking support will allow our region to pilot innovative strategies to address youth homelessness and position King County to effectively end homeless for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness by end of 2020.
Creating the Office of Homeless Youth in Washington state
Along with community partners, we helped drive the creation of Washington’s Office of Homeless Youth (OHY), an agency charged with leading statewide efforts to prevent youth homelessness. Since its creation the office has issued a plan to effectively end youth homelessness in the state, helped providers implement best practices for homeless youth, and funded efforts to eliminate the practice of discharging youth from public systems into homelessness.
Launching statewide campaign to end youth homelessness in Washington state
Working with other funders, we helped launch A Way Home Washington (AWHWA), a campaign to end youth and young adult homelessness in our state. In 2017, AWHWA worked closely with Rapid Results Institute and the communities in King, Pierce, and Spokane counties to house more than 600 young people as part of a 100-Day Challenge. In the fall of 2018, AWHWA launched the Anchor Communities Initiative—a project to demonstrate that it is possible effectively end youth homelessness in communities across our state—with the ultimate goal of ending youth homelessness statewide by 2022.
Supporting national efforts to end youth homelessness
In partnership with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, a leading research institution on youth and families, we supported Voices of Youth Count, a first-of-its-kind research initiative on the prevalence of youth homelessness nationwide. Using innovative research methods, Chapin Hall’s data provides an in-depth look at how and why youth experience homelessness, where homeless youth are, and what strategies we can use to end youth homelessness.
We also supported the launch of A Way Home America (AWHA), an effort that brings together diverse stakeholders nationwide with the shared goal of preventing and ending youth homelessness in the United States.
Supporting efforts to address student homelessness
With the America’s Promise Alliance, Schoolhouse Connection, Civic Enterprises, and the Institute for Children, Poverty & Homelessness, we supported the launch of the Education Leads Home campaign. The campaign has three goals: Ensure students who experience homeless have equal access to early childhood education by 2026; achieve a 90 percent graduation rate for homeless students by 2030; and reach a 60 percent post-secondary attainment rate for homeless students by 2034.
Working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Vulcan Philanthropy, and the Campion Foundation, we also supported the creation of Schoolhouse Washington, an organization that addresses student homelessness in Washington state. As a result of our collective efforts, there are more resources, improved policies, and important lessons learned on what we can do to prevent students and their families from experiencing homelessness.
Driving innovation in prevention and crisis response
Supporting youth advocacy
We support the Mockingbird Society’s Youth Advocates for Ending Homelessness program, which trains and supports current and formerly homeless youth to speak publicly and directly with policymakers about the needs of homeless youth. These youth advocates have been critical to advancing local and statewide efforts on youth homelessness.
Supporting equitable outcomes
Not all young people are equally at risk of experiencing homelessness. Overwhelmingly, young people who experience homelessness are LGBTQ, youth of color, or both, and we believe that if we’re going to end youth homelessness, we have to address structural and institutional racism and inequities. We have invested in several efforts to better understand the institutional and structural barriers that hold back marginalized youth including:
On a recent Monday morning, a young woman took a seat before the Seattle City Council, opened her PowerPoint slides, and cheerfully introduced herself to the elected officials.
“My name is Montrai Williams,” she told the council, flashing a photograph of herself in pigtails at the age of four. “I go by Trai.”
She spoke with the calm and confidence of a seasoned political veteran. Yet Trai is far from typical in the halls of government—one reason why she is such an effective advocate for preventing and ending youth homelessness in King County.
On a recent Monday morning, a young woman took a seat before the Seattle City Council, opened her PowerPoint slides, and cheerfully introduced herself to the elected officials.
“My name is Montrai Williams,” she told the council, flashing a photograph of herself in pigtails at the age of four. “I go by Trai.”
She spoke with the calm and confidence of a seasoned political veteran. Yet Trai is far from typical in the halls of government—one reason why she is such an effective advocate for preventing and ending youth homelessness in King County.
Five years into our work on youth homelessness, the Raikes Foundation team reflects on challenges, successes and lessons learned from our work to-date in King County. Our hope is that this document will inform other public and private funders as they set out on their own journeys to support young people facing homelessness in their communities.
Read MoreMissed Opportunities is the first in a series of research-to-impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. This brief is part of Voices of Youth Count, the most comprehensive study ever done on the challenge of youth homelessness in the United States.
Read MoreSchools play an integral role in preventing youth from experiencing homelessness and supporting those who do. Commissioned by the Raikes Foundation, this report by Civic Enterprises and America's Promise Alliance draws on available data and first-hand testimonials to outline what must be done to support schools in this important work.
Read MoreWashington's Office of Homeless Youth has put together the state's first plan to solve youth homelessness. The report outlines the state's current capacity, as well as assets and gaps, and makes recommendations that will help the state end youth homelessness.
Read More“We can end youth homelessness, and it starts with adults affirming young people’s identities and letting them show us the way. ”
– Tricia Raikes, Co-Founder, Raikes Foundation
This grant supports LCYC’s Legal Services Partnership for Youth, a program that provides pro bono legal support for young people experiencing homelessness.
This grant supports A Way Home Washington’s efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness in Washington State.
This collection of grants to the Rapid Results Institute, Nexus Youth and Families, YouthCare, the Reach Center, and Spokane Housing Authority facilitated the 100-Day Challenge in Washington state, an initiative to house as many young people as possible in 100 days by piloting innovative solutions.
This grant supports Civic Enterprises’ work on student homelessness, including research, policy development and analysis, and communications.
This grant provides ongoing support for the Youth Advocates Ending Homelessness, a leadership development program that engages young people who are currently experiencing or have previously experienced homelessness to engage in efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness in Washington State.
This grant supports a collaborative effort among these five youth service providers to offer flexible funding to more quickly end the crisis of homelessness for young people. The project also supports the development of the Youth Worker’s Institute, skills development training for providers, and peer learning across agencies.
