Zero for All

Expand your focus to new target populations, to drive toward ending all homelessness.

Youth Resources

Assess and engage with a racial equity lens

• Meaningfully include LGBTQ+ young people and young people of color in planning, project design, and decision-making.
  • True Colors United: Youth Collaboration Toolkit
    
• Use data to understand the impact of racism on LGBT young people and young people of color’s experience of homelessness.
  • Example of Data Analysis: True Colors United’s Serving Our Youth Report
  • Example of Data Analysis: Chapin Hall’s Voices of Youth Count LGBTQ Youth Homelessness in America Brief
  • Measuring Up: Youth-Level Outcomes and System Responses to Youth Homelessness from the Youth Collaboratory
    
• Engage homeless service providers and the community with anti-racism education and resources.
  • Anti-Racism Resources for Homeless Service Providers

Provide Youth professional development, leadership, and compensation opportunities

• Engage youth in advocacy and policy-making at the project, local, state and national levels.
  • Bright Spot: Survivor Advisory Committee, Minneapolis, MN
  • Bright Spot: Youth Action Board, Gulfport/Gulf Coast, MS
  • HUD’s Guide for Engaging Youth in Decision Making
    
• Build strong foundations and training for young people working in the systems affecting their lives. Make it easy for youth to gain knowledge about systems so they are prepared to engage in the work (e.g. create an acronym list, provide a description of systems and their processes, have mentors/people that young people can seek out for guidance and for their questions)
  
• Include young people in the training and professional development opportunities that project staff receive.
  
• Compensate youth for their time and expertise with a stipend or paycheck instead of bus passes, pizza, gift cards etc

Strengthen natural community supports

• Provide support for young people who wish to reconnect with family or other trusted adults.
  • Bright Spot: LA LGBT Center Family Re-connection Program
  • Bright Spot: Safe and Supported, Faith in Families Program. Cincinnati, OH
    
• Expand the definition of family to include all its forms. “Family” should always be defined by the young person, and might include biological family members, friends, or other trusted adults.
  
• Provide training to families and caregivers in the community to support LGBTQ+ youth and young adults.
  • SAMHSA’s Practitioner’s Resource Guide: Helping Families to Support their LGBT Children

Develop a flexible-data driven housing portfolio

• Consider creating a host home network instead of relying solely on youth shelters.
  • Point Source Youth’s Host Homes Handbook
  • Lighthouse Youth and Family Services’ Host Home Implementation Report