On any given night, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Point-in-Time (PIT) count shows there are tens of thousands of homeless youth in America.<\/p>\n
And New York state’s homeless population includes lot of children, according to a report by the state comptroller \u2014 32% to be exact.<\/p>\n
That’s why Salvation Army Street Outreach Supervisor Marett Seymour says people ages 13-21 are considered highly vulnerable to homelessness.<\/p>\n
“We want to make a long-term impact on our youth so that they’re not homeless their entire lives,” Seymour said.<\/p>\n
Yet for organizations, assisting homeless youth could be made more complicated in some capacities based on the Trump administration’s proposed HUD budget cuts starting in 2027.<\/p>\n
A HUD spokesperson said it’s “supporting a treatment-first approach, which prioritizes accountability and recovery services.”<\/p>\n
The spokesperson continued, “since President Trump took office, HUD has supported… approximately $23.2 million in FYI (Foster Youth to Independence initiative) funding.”<\/p>\n
State data shows increases in homelessness are driven primarily by families with children. Experts like Nick Scollard, the Human Services Coalition (HSC) of Tompkins County’s coordinated data entry systems manager, said it’s another indicator youth need to be prioritized highly when it comes to assistance.<\/p>\n
“It’s hard to accomplish anything in life when you don’t have a home,” Scollard said. “When you talk about youth, it’s a lot of generational homelessness and then also a lot of youth escaping abusive households.”<\/p>\n
Scollard mentioned organizations like Tompkins County’s Learning Web as examples of organizations that work hand-in-hand with human services coalitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the Learning Web, Executive Director Olan Mack assists about 150 kids per year by helping secure apartments with non-taxable rent support, among other things.<\/p>\n
“Being in a position to help them in a comprehensive way, I think, is really, really important,” Mack said.<\/p>\n
Seymour said oftentimes, youth can be vulnerable to making impulsive housing decisions based on personal factors.<\/p>\n
At the Salvation Army, for example, relocation in a decent timeframe is a top priority. Some organizations said roughly 18 months is their goal for youth tenure in transitional or permanent supportive housing.<\/p>\n
“One of the main tenets of our Street Outreach Program and our Homeless Prevention Program is employment and education,” Seymour added.<\/p>\n
The HSC of Tompkins County posted a statistic saying nationwide permanent supportive housing has grown over 100% in 20 years, yet opportunities for youth in transitional housing continue to decrease.<\/p>\n
Mack said regardless of potential cuts, organizations like his will continue to plug along. Youth figure to continue to need local continuums of care like the HSC, which Mack said are “invaluable.”<\/p>\n
“There’s not enough resources to help everybody,” Mack said. “But we do the best we can.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On any given night, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Point-in-Time (PIT) count shows there are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[257,17202,2000,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,6317,200],"class_list":["post-357310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-central-ny","tag-david-jacobs","tag-homelessness","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-swarm","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}