runaway

A young person tested positive for the fast-spreading coronavirus at a New York runaway and homeless youth shelter today, the same day program directors implored city leaders to pay attention to the dire situation for youth living on the streets.

Across America, the persistence of teen and young adult homelessness represents a failure to provide for and protect our youth. Groundbreaking research by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago found that across any 12-month period, more than 4.1 million young people between the ages of 13 and 25 experience some form of homelessness in America.

At 15-years old, Sarah* had already moved between a handful of New York City’s foster care agencies. She was a victim of sex trafficking, an illicit industry that disproportionately targets children in the child welfare system.

Most youth who wind up homeless find themselves in that state in their teen years. But the path there often began in their homes, years beforehand. That is one of the big takeaways from a recent report by University of Chicago-based Chapin Hall, a research group that interviewed young people around the country about their experience with homelessness.

A New York State appellate court expressed sympathy for New York City using  arrest warrants to bring runaway and possibly unstable foster youth into custody. But ultimately, the court ruled, there is no compelling reason within the law for family courts to approve such warrants for youth who have not broken any law.

As states prepare for a child welfare overhaul that will limit federal funds to group care, a recent report shows that most systems are already gravitating toward greater use of family foster homes and relative caregivers.

The Family and Youth Services Bureau, a division of the federal Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is hosting the eighth iteration of its mural contest for runaway and homeless youth.

The Trump administration has hired William Wubbenhorst, whose career has focused on calculating returns on investment for social ventures and research, to lead the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB), a small youth-oriented division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Last week I wrote a column about the missing children who have run away from District of Columbia foster homes. Youth Services Insider estimated that foster youth account for about 10 percent of missing children reports and a larger fraction of the current pool of missing children in the District of Columbia.