Emergency Housing for Foster Youth and Systems-Impacted Youth

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

In Los Angeles, system-impacted youth account for 60% of unhoused youth. As they exit the system, 40% of foster youth become homeless within 18 months. The risk of experiencing homelessness is 83% higher for Black youth and 33% higher for Latino/a/x youth.
As a community, we should be doing everything in our power to ensure that our kids don’t leave the system into homelessness. Transitional housing is scarce for transition-age youth and disappears when they reach the age of 25, just when they're at a crucial crossroad in building a stable adulthood. With rents at record highs, the risk of emancipated foster youth becoming chronically homeless is growing. Each night spent unhoused compounds the trauma of system involvement, increases the risk of physical harm, and impairs the ability to attain and retain employment.
When they enroll in our programs, more than half of youth are unhoused or housing insecure. It can take days to weeks to place them in dedicated housing. We must do better.

RightWay’s Emergency Housing Initiative is crucial for ending homelessness in Los Angeles for foster youth and system-impacted youth. The initiative would give RightWay the funding it needs to provide immediate safe housing in a shared house or hotel room for unhoused young adults entering our programs.
RightWay serves foster and reentry youth, ages 18-26+ across Los Angeles County, with the majority of the youth coming from South LA. Of the youth we serve, 90% are Black; 9% are Latino/a/x. 32% are homeless when they enter our program; 85% are housing insecure. Over 90% are unemployed when they enter our program. 40% are justice system-impacted. All have experienced trauma stemming from their family of origin and the foster care system.
Each young adult who enrolls in our program goes through an intake process in which we get to know their housing status, mental health needs, employment, and general well-being. If a young adult is unhoused, we begin the process of connecting them to transitional housing or placing them in our supportive housing program in which we pay half their rent for a year. Our Emergency Housing Initiative would bridge the gap between intake and permanent housing, giving us the ability to safely house a young adult that very night. In our Emergency Housing, former foster youth will have their basic needs met while we enroll them in our comprehensive supportive programs and begin to work with them to build their financial security and well-being.

In 2022’s Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, 35% of unsheltered adults had experienced the foster care or juvenile justice systems. If we can stop the pipeline to homelessness for foster and re-entry youth, we can rapidly stem the tide of homelessness in LA County.
RightWay’s supportive housing program, Operation Housing First, has proven to be a scalable model to support system-impacted youth across the County. With our Emergency Housing Initiative, we can now demonstrate how individualized gap housing can decrease retraumatization and allow young adults to more rapidly build stability and mitigate risks. Without safe housing, young adults cannot focus on employment, financial capability building, or begin to process the trauma of systems-involvement. RightWay’s Emergency Housing Initiative can produce a gap housing model that can stop homelessness before it begins. By preventing young adults from experiencing homelessness, we can better pave the path to a healthy, stable adulthood.

RightWay will measure the program impact by tracking these outcomes:
A minimum of 90% of program participants will be connected to stable housing.
A minimum of 80% of youth will report an increase in social support and a decrease in social isolation. A minimum of 80% will secure paid internship/employment and will retain employment 6 months after securing employment. A minimum of 80% will report improved mental health and emotional well-being. A minimum of 75% who meet the criteria for a DSM 5 diagnosis/es will report a decrease in symptoms and behaviors related to their mental health diagnosis/es.