Youth Homelessness

For three years, Jaysa Cooper focused only on the 24 hours ahead, unsure where she would sleep and whether she’d be able to eat. The 21-year-old couch-surfed with friends and family or slept in her car in and around Yakima, where she was born and raised.

In January, when a preliminary report identifying gaps in state-led programs to prevent youth homelessness was released in Washington state, it was clear who was being left out or ill-served: youth of color and those with disabilities.

When Spokane’s Crosswalk teen shelter hired behavioral health counselor Kaitlyn Lee last year with money from a new state grant, part of her job was to shoot pool in the common room with the teenagers.

Early legislation by a new Washington state senator — a trailblazing former foster youth who rose up from homelessness to lead her Tacoma area district in the capital — has passed out of the Senate with unanimous bipartisan support, a bill to help the most vulnerable children get through school.

When teens and young adults who’ve lived through homelessness and foster care gather this year to tell Washington state policymakers what their peers need most, the youth advocates will have three priorities: they want lawyers for every foster child, a task force to focus on the experience of Native Americans and better support for the newly independent.

In a lawsuit filed this week in federal court, advocates say Washington state’s practice of placing foster youth in hotels and government offices overnight, housing them in group homes, and sending them out of state has left hundreds of children with behavioral health and developmental disabilities essentially homeless.

While millions of California residents have been pushed into financial peril under the crush of the coronavirus pandemic, new research shows that more than a quarter of the state’s former foster youth struggled with homelessness and housing instability well before the virus’ economic devastation hit.