Guidelines for

Homeless Youth Population Survey  

A Project of the Garden State Coalition 
for Youth and Family Concerns, Inc.
330 Washington Street
Newark, NJ  07102 (973) 286-3404

Forward

The Garden State Coalition for Youth and Family Concerns Inc. (GSC) and the New Jersey Department of Housing and Urban Development initiated a working group to work on the issue of homeless youth from Fall 1998 through Spring 1999. Members of the group include the Department of Community Affairs, the Juvenile Justice Commission, the New Jersey Department of Labor and the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services.  Since then, GSC has sought input from Hudson, Camden, and Mercer counties and has received extensive technical assistance and resources from the New School University in New York City.  These collaborations have led to the creation of an inexpensive and technically sound model for counting homeless youth in myriad communities.

 

Nature of the Problem

 In the State of New Jersey, the number of homeless youth is estimated to be approximately 13,000.  Estimates and information based solely on expert opinion, and not incidences of service use, is not acceptable data through which communities can build their case for federal funds.  Federal agencies, including the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development  (HUD), require each county to gather specific data on the state’s homeless population.  While there is compliance with these regulations, current methodologies for counting the homeless are not designed to include the sub-population of homeless youth.  Across the country, homeless youth have been undercounted and homeless youth serving agencies have underutilized HUD programming.

 It is our goal that this methodology will assist New Jersey in building a continuum of care for homeless and aging-out youth which will serve as a national model, leading the way for communities across the country to assess and plan to assist youth toward stable productive adulthood. 

  

Context

The efforts of the working group to explore new ways of counting homeless youth represent only one part of a more complex set of actions that are being undertaken by GSC to educate the public and initiate public policy on behalf of better serving homeless youth in New Jersey.  These efforts include the 1999 passage of the New Jersey Homeless Youth Act, which ensured a young person’s right to seek the safety of a crisis shelter.  This Legislation also created a funding stream for new services for homeless youth throughout the State of New Jersey.

 

Working Assumption

The underlying premise of the working group reflected in this effort to count homeless youth, is that funding from all federal agencies (US Departments of Health and Human Services, Education and Housing and Urban Development) requires state and local jurisdictions to report data and show gaps in services as a condition for funding eligibility.

 

Validation of Assumption

While homeless data is generally reported, current methodology does not capture the numbers or needs of homeless youth.  Youth unaccompanied by adults generally do not frequent adult shelter and soup kitchens, where most data is collected.  Within existing reporting methods there is little that speaks to the needs of homeless youth.  As a result, homeless youth are seldom if ever in the continuum of care plans of communities across counties and states throughout the country.  This is reflected in funding patterns.

•  In FY ’98, HUD made grants to the State of New Jersey of approximately $192 million in four program areas in which funds could be utilized for homeless youth
  . 
•  In FY ’98, we estimated that approximately $1 million of these funds were directed to homeless youth from the $22.7 million given directly to this population under the Homeless Continuum of Care in the State.  In the other three areas we are unable to identify any funds being used for homeless youth.   
• HUD’s budget for FY ’99 will be approximately $972 million in four program areas from which funding can be used for homeless youth.

 

Window of Opportunity

There was a window of opportunity in 1999-2000, as communities across the State of New Jersey developed new, five-year consolidated plans for the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.  In New Jersey, the New Jersey Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) covered the federal fiscal year 1994-1998.  As local communities and the State initiate their new counts of the homeless it is imperative that homeless youth be included in the count so that services for this sub-population can be planned and implemented.  Failure to do so would result in their complete exclusion, or homeless youth receiving very limited services for another five-year period.   The GSC worked extensively with providers in Jersey City and Camden City during this period to assist with data collection, and to educate providers and planners about this special population.  The following materials document the methodology used in this work.

 

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