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Youth Homelessness

Currently, one of the primary ways to identify young people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity is through their interactions with the homeless services system, such as visiting a shelter or engaging with an outreach worker. These interactions are recorded in the federally funded Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). For public school students, homelessness is tracked when they connect with a homeless education liaison, with data reported through the McKinney-Vento program to the U.S. Department of Education. While HMIS provides valuable insights into individuals accessing homeless services, it does not capture those who do not engage with the system. This gap is particularly significant for youth and young adults, who are less likely than older adults to use formal shelter services. Instead, they often rely on social networks, couch surf, or sleep in cars. As a result, estimating the true number of youth experiencing homelessness has been a persistent challenge. This study was designed to explore whether regional administrative data could supplement HMIS and McKinney-Vento data to improve estimates of youth and young adult homelessness. In 2024, our team completed a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-funded study (grant number H-21693CA) examining the potential of regional administrative data to enhance prevalence and incidence estimates. The project leveraged the Child-Household Integrated Longitudinal Data (CHILD) system, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data, county HMIS data, and student records from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. By integrating these sources, we developed a novel approach to identifying and estimating the prevalence of youth experiencing housing instability. Using CHILD and additional datasets, we created a baseline registry of youth ages 13 to 25 identified in HMIS or school administrative records. This registry was expanded through an Address List method, which linked address-level data across systems, and refined using Multiple Systems Estimation (MSE) to account for youth missing from administrative records. The final HUD report and a community guide for organizations interested in generating their own prevalence estimates are now available for review and download.