Support bold new WA effort to divert foster youth from homelessness

Regarding homelessness, the ongoing debate about perception versus reality just received a damning new piece of data. Compared with other urban centers, Seattle is a “stark outlier” in its rate of homeless people living on the streets, according to a new analysis from the Brookings Institution.

Though cities like New York, Philadelphia and Chicago also face significant challenges with homelessness, they have been able to provide shelter to most. Unlike Seattle, where 57% of unhoused people live outside.

Part of the difference may be due to our region’s more temperate climate and officials’ allowance of encampments. Other West Coast cities also posted rates above 50% for homeless people living unsheltered — including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland.

But Brookings says most of the problem comes from the supply side — the dearth of “low-barrier” housing; the disconnect between soaring rents and low-incomes; and the lack of solutions for people who need help to rejoin society after incarceration.

“A large, unsheltered homeless population is not an inevitable part of human or urban life,” wrote researchers Hanna Love and Tracy Loh. “Allowing the root causes to continue unabated creates the real ‘doom loop’: a homelessness challenge that becomes harder to solve the longer we wait.”

One driver of homelessness not mentioned by Brookings is foster care, specifically young people who either run from the system to live on the streets or age out of it at 18 without an education, job prospects, or family support. Nationally, about 30% of kids who age out become homeless. A Colorado study found that over their lifetimes each group of 200 aged-out youth costs the state about $70 million in incarceration and social services.

Against that backdrop, a bold new effort in Washington to divert foster youth from those ends deserves support. The Department of Children, Youth and Families is paying to house three-dozen adolescents on their own, in dorm-style homes. Most of these kids are 16 or 17 years old, uninterested in being adopted and too independent to live in a family setting. Many previously spent their nights in hotel rooms or other semi-itinerant placements that did nothing to build healthy skills toward self-sufficiency.

Five are now living in a North Seattle home run by the YMCA, which has staff on site 24/7. Another half-dozen teens live at a similar site in Clark County. By next spring, DCYF anticipates housing an additional 33 in four buildings scattered across the state.

The goal is that at least 75% of these independent young people will complete high school and get a job, or enroll in postsecondary training by their 18^th birthdays, though they may remain in the program until age 20. Each receives a small monthly allowance as well as coaching on learning to budget, buy groceries and live as productive adults.

Admittedly, a houseful of teenagers piloting their own lives sounds risky, even with staff on site, and choosing the right kids for this program will be key to its success. But the Legislature should be commended for signing on to this nontraditional approach. Keeping adolescents in hotels and group homes has produced consistently awful results.

It’s time to try something new.