Case Study: Walla Walla

Spotlight on Adjacent Systems

Walla Walla’s Youth Engagement Team (YET) is a multidisciplinary, cross-system approach that connects adjacent systems to the youth homeless response system by: 

• Engaging young people early through proactive outreach in schools and community spaces
• Building strong relationships with child welfare and juvenile justice, formalizing referral pathways and connecting young people to the by-name dataset
• Bridging housing and legal support in one team to remove barriers that typically block youth from accessing housing, particularly for unaccompanied minors
• Meeting young people where they are with flexible, youth-centered engagement
• Aligning multiple systems around a shared approach, creating clearer and faster pathways into housing

The Challenge

Many young people experiencing housing instability are not connected to the homeless response system. Instead, they are more likely to be identified through schools, child welfare, or juvenile justice systems. Without clear pathways to connect these systems to housing support, young people get missed or face delays in getting help. This is especially true for unaccompanied minors, who often face additional barriers just to access services.

Background

Walla Walla started working toward Youth Quality Data in 2018 through a state-wide initiative in Washington State focused on preventing and ending unaccompanied youth and young adult homelessness. They first reached this milestone in February 2020 and even achieved a 60% reduction over a two year period, reducing the number of unaccompanied young people on their By-Name List from around 80 young people to 30. 

Walla Walla credits much of their success to their strong cross-sector partnerships that allow them to quickly identify unaccompanied youth across schools, behavioral health, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems. In particular, the introduction of the Youth Engagement Team (YET) model, including a civil legal aid attorney embedded within the housing navigation team substantially accelerated their progress on reducing youth homelessness.

Before the Quality Data Process

Walla Walla is a rural county located in the southeastern corner of Washington State, near the Oregon border, with a population of around 63,000 residents. In 2018, Walla Walla joined a statewide initiative run by a public-private partnership that provided dedicated resources for youth and young adult (YYA) outreach and services from the Washington State government. These resources allowed the community to create a YYA-specific housing navigation team, including funding for a civil legal attorney, forming the Youth Engagement Team (YET).

Walla Walla is a Washington Balance of State (BoS) community with an HMIS system managed by the state’s Department of Commerce. The community began its journey to quality data in 2018, reaching the milestone in February 2020. The journey cemented Walla Walla’s Improvement Team as one dedicated to cross-sector collaboration, data quality, and continuous improvement. 

A Multidisciplinary Approach

The YET in Walla Walla was inspired by the model in King County, Washington, and consists of 2-3 YYA Housing Navigators at Blue Mountain Action Council and a licensed Legal Counsel for Youth and Children (LCYC) attorney. The King County model also includes a mental health professional, a role that is not currently a part of the Walla Walla YET. The team is funded through dedicated state dollars from the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Office of Homeless Youth (OHY).

The multidisciplinary team works with unaccompanied young people (ages 12-24) experiencing or at risk of homelessness, supporting both system navigation and resolving legal barriers that prevent YYA from accessing safe and stable housing. Referrals across the YET are direct and immediate, and young people can choose to work with one team member or multiple depending on their needs.

The YET conducts street and school outreach as a team and individually. A key component of the model is its intentional connection to adjacent systems. The YET prioritizes building relationships by being physically present in the community and tabling in-person in collaboration with:

• Schools and McKinney-Vento liaisons
• Recovery support services
• Police officers and first responders
• YMCA and Boys and girls clubs
• Criminal legal system and county jail
• Behavioral health/transitional living services
• Child welfare

These partnerships create consistent pathways for youth to be identified and connected to housing support through systems they already interact with. 

Expanding Access and Removing Barriers

The YET model expands access and removes barriers by bringing together outreach, housing navigation, and legal support into one coordinated approach. Instead of requiring young people to navigate multiple systems on their own, the team meets them where they are and addresses barriers in real time. Key strengths of this approach include:

Connecting adjacent systems to the homeless response system: The YET intentionally built strong partnerships with their local schools, their local Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), and Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) early on by providing education on what the YET is trying to achieve and focusing on increased collaboration. They came together around a shared aim to support young people and developed referral pathways from these critical access points, allowing youth who may not engage with traditional homelessness services to be connected to the by-name dataset.

Immediacy of access to services: Legal and housing services in Walla Walla have long waitlists. Prior to the YET, YYA wouldn’t even be given access to housing services if they were unstably housed or at imminent risk. Free and affordable legal services were a barrier to access and YYA-specific legal services were almost unheard of. The YET provided direct access to both for YYA. 

Resolving legal barriers: One of the most difficult challenges of housing young people under 18 is navigating the legal system and consent. The LCYC attorney brought authority and expertise to work with guardians and DCYF. Unaccompanied minors were supported with emancipation, consent-based housing options, obtaining documentation, and navigating legal issues. At the same time, navigators worked to secure housing and connect youth to resources. 

Bilingual services: The bilingual LCYC attorney was instrumental in supporting Latine and undocumented youth. In one case, the YET were able to work with a young person whose documentation was unclear and their legal guardian left them in the US with a family friend and went back to Mexico. The YET worked together to fight for documentation and lined up housing for their upcoming 18th birthday. This would’ve been impossible prior to the YET, according to the young person, because they were always told they were undocumented and didn’t have any legal recourse.

Flexibility: The YET navigators met young people where they were – in school, outside their friends’ house, in the courtroom, at a park, whichever was most convenient for them. Young people demonstrated that flexibility was paramount to participation in services. They were never required to come into the office, which increased engagement and trust.

Scaling the Model

The YET model was first funded by Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) dollars in King and Snohomish Counties. Additional public funding through the Washington Office of Homeless Youth (OHY) allowed the model to expand into Walla Walla and other more rural areas of the state. Now, due to the sustained positive impact of the model on a wide range of counties across varying geographies and population sizes, the model has been scaled across the state.

Other communities interested in piloting this model could start a pilot with their YHDP dollars. Partnerships could also be built with existing local legal aid organizations in communities to pilot providing legal support in discrete areas such as vital documents, immigration, and public benefits support. The National Youth Homelessness Legal Network run by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Poverty and Homelessness has collected information on youth legal resources by state. Communities should search for their state and make connections with local legal providers in their area as a starting point.

Contact Meghan DeBolt at Blue Mountain Action Council meghand@bmacww.org for further inquiries.