The Urban Institute Identifies Best Practices and Areas for Improvement for Counting Homeless Youth

The Youth Count! Process Study, released by the Urban Institute on July 30, identifies promising practices and areas for improvement for local service providers conducting point-in-time (PIT) counts of homeless unaccompanied youth in nine communities across the nation. The communities surveyed are the pilot sites in the federal Youth Count! Initiative, a multiagency effort to conduct an accurate count of homeless youth nationwide and to assess their needs and characteristics in order to better serve this vulnerable population. Since recent federal and nonprofit counts of the nation’s youth homeless population vary widely, from 22,700 to 1.7 million, the Youth Count! Initiative seeks to conduct an accurate count of homeless youths, both sheltered and unsheltered, during a single night in January. In addition to achieving an accurate count, the study seeks to discern patterns, behaviors, and coping strategies typical of homeless youth, the length of periods that youth are homeless, and whether there is continuing contact or the possibility of reconciliation between homeless youths and their families. Since PIT count methodologies vary widely from community to community, the Urban Institute was selected to conduct an evaluation of Youth Count! procedures in order to increase the accuracy of local PIT counts for homeless youth. Ultimately, the study seeks to identify practices that could be applicable for similar counts in other locations. Urban Institute researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants before and after the counts, analysis of survey data, and in-person observation during all but one of the Youth Count! PIT counts. The study emphasizes that traditional methods of counting homeless adults do not work for homeless youths, who are often disconnected from community services and resources due to fear of police involvement or placement in foster care, and the unavailability of youth-oriented services. Homeless youths are also more likely than adults to be highly transient, living with friends, or hiding in plain sight among their peers, all of which render traditional shelter or street PIT counts less useful for this population. Urban Institute researchers identified several promising strategies for counting homeless youth. Engaging youth and LGBT service providers in the count, as well as young people serving as consultants, guides, or outreach workers, help to more effectively reach homeless youth. Magnet events providing food or other resources proved to be promising ways to attract homeless youth, though attendees were usually already using social services. Social media outreach showed limited promise in spreading the word about these magnet events. Finally, researchers found that surveys asking about measures of housing instability were more useful than questions about homelessness, as they allow count planners to assess broader definitions of homelessness and capture often-invisible subgroups of homeless youth, such as those couch surfing with friends. Researchers also identified areas for improvement in the nine counts that they observed. They caution against only surveying people in “hot spots” where the homeless are known to congregate and people who appear to be homeless, as homeless youths are often indistinguishable from their non-homeless peers. They also recommend the creation of a unified survey to be used at each PIT count site instead of the varied local (and often inconsistent) surveys currently in use. In addition, researchers call for improved training and debriefing before and after each study in order to improve the technical accuracy of the count and avoid duplicate counting of homeless individuals. Finally, the Urban Institute research team advocates for increased partnership with schools to help raise awareness about the count and conduct outreach among students who are known to be homeless. The Urban Institute provides an online collection of resources about counting homeless youth, including links to past studies, blog posts, and other sources of information on the Youth Count! Initiative and conducting point-in-time counts of the homeless. Access the Youth Count! Process Study here: http://urbn.is/18NkPT0Access the Counting Homeless Youth resource webpage on the Urban Institute’s website here: http://urbn.is/12GxasZ