Community-Based Housing Innovations for Systems-Involved Youth

Housing and Homelessness

County of Los Angeles

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative

LA claims the nation's largest population of foster, homeless, & systems-impacted youth. While LA County voted to close juvenile facilities in 2021, the number of incarcerated youth has only increased. Poverty & race are predictors of system involvement, & interaction with one system increases the likelihood of involvement in another: 25% of homeless youth experiencing foster care & 59% navigating the justice system. These statistics show that housing instability & economic precarity form a direct pipeline into legal & child welfare systems which disproportionately impact families of color. Historical solutions have largely ignored the critical roles of economic inclusion & community-led efforts, relying instead on detention & congregate care - responses that increase intergenerational disparities, decrease chances of family reunification & economic mobility, & perpetuate the criminalization of youth & communities of color.

Beloved Community Housing addresses these inequities through a continuum of care that offers a shift from carceral & welfare systems to a holistic, community-driven approach. Beloved partners with systems-impacted girls, trans youth & caregivers to provide safe, stable housing options through expanded kinship & community-care networks while ensuring families are economically resourced through the provision of guaranteed income. We work with licensing agencies to recruit & approve certified community homes that function as formal foster homes hosted by individuals from the community who share identities & experiences with the youth and who receive extensive, ongoing support & training from Beloved. The goal is to resource communities to make self-determined choices about their own lives, to foster economic independence, & to support alternatives to incarceration that are grounded in real housing options & family reunification. Individuals with lived experience are hired as Self-Determination Advocates who work closely with young people & families to build relationships, develop individualized plans, support systems navigation, provide legal advocacy, coordinate housing placement, & access necessary resources & interventions. All Beloved participants are supported for 3 years with restorative justice facilitation, family/relationship support, & annual funding of up to $65,000 per family (compared to $400K per year to house 1 young person in juvenile detention).

If Beloved Housing is successful, it will serve as a proof point for a housing-first, community-based alternative to incarceration & congregate care that can be replicated across the county, the state, & the US. LA will become the model for ending youth incarceration, eradicating youth homelessness, expanding community-care networks, prioritizing the self-determination of marginalized communities, & fostering economic independence through universal basic income for systems-impacted families. The short-term goals that will lead to this larger vision include: 1) the launch of our 3-year pilot to serve at least 50 young women, trans youth, & their caregivers in LA, 2) strong partnership with our fiscal sponsor YWFC & sibling organization Sister Warriors to advocate for LA County's fulfillment of its commitment to close detention facilities & divert young people into community -based housing, & 3) documentation & evaluation of the process & outcomes towards evolving & scaling the model.

Beloved builds on 30 years of experience from its fiscal sponsor, Young Women's Freedom Center (YWFC), a Bay Area organization built & led by system-impacted girls, women, & trans youth. During the pandemic, YWFC diverted 50 system-impacted youth experiencing housing & economic crises from state-run residential facilities to community-led housing. This program's success has heavily informed Beloved's design. We also rely on YWFC's Research Institute & its long-standing partnership with New York University (NYU) for data collection & evaluation. Previously collected data is already being analyzed by NYU to establish a baseline & to craft feasible, ambitious goals that will demonstrate program success which will be measured by a decrease in the number of systems-involved & homeless youth in LA, an increase in economic mobility & stability of participants compared to the control group, improved well-being of participants & caregivers, & policy change driven by program outcomes.