Housing Stability For Youth
What if every community worked together to make sure all young people have a safe, stable place to call home?
Young people without stable housing face different challenges than adults.
They’re often harder to spot. Many are sleeping in cars or staying with friends rather than living on the street or in shelters.
Young people also tend to form their own support networks, so the kind of help that works for adults doesn’t always fit what they need.
That’s why addressing and preventing youth homelessness starts with listening to young people themselves. It’s the best way to design effective support that can give young people stability today while preventing chronic homelessness in their future.
Our approach focuses on a set of interconnected initiatives:
Prevention
Working across the services that support young people to stop homelessness before it begins.
Education
Ensuring schools have the resources, support, and tools they need to help students who don’t have stable housing.
Crisis response
Helping communities coordinate support and services and apply proven strategies to end youth homelessness.
Field building and advocacy
Building the policy, funding, and leadership foundation needed to sustain progress in ending youth homelessness.
Spotlight
Abbie Benson
SchoolHouse Connection Scholar and University of Washington student
Abbie Benson is one of the many young people who are helping to inform and shape solutions to youth homelessness by offering perspective from their own experience. In 2025, she spoke in a panel discussion at a Raikes Foundation event that brought together policymakers, researchers, advocates, and educators to collaborate on developing effective strategies to end youth homelessness.
The Raikes Foundation has shown a level of intentionality and respect for youth voices that feels so validating and empowering. Young people are the ones living within these systems and therefore, are the ones most capable to influence and change them.
Abbie Benson
4.2 million young people
The 40% decline in youth experiencing homelessness we've seen at the state level is incredibly encouraging. We believe the collective strategy behind that progress — Washington State's commitment to addressing this issue, strong advocacy, improved data, and using that data to design and scale supports — could certainly get us close to 100%.
Supporting Students Without Satable Housing
How can we make the most of federal funding for students experiencing homelessness?
As part of the American Rescue Plan Act for COVID-19 relief, the federal government made historic investments in supporting children and young people.
This included an infusion of $800 million in education funding to identify and support young people experiencing homelessness. Students who receive support are more likely to stay in school, graduate, and thrive in the future.
With support from the Raikes Foundation, our partners at SchoolHouse Connection played a pivotal role in expanding how those funds could be used to make the biggest impact for students.
How federal funds can make an impact:
Training staff
Improving efforts to identify students experiencing homelessness
Hiring staff
Adding resources to help families navigate housing challenges
Paying for short-term housing
Meeting families’ immediate needs with temporary housing
Providing transportation support
Covering gas cards, ride vouchers, car repair funds, and more
Buying supplies
Providing store cards or debit cards to help students purchase what they need
Expanding internet access
Helping students access reliable, high-speed internet so they can stay connected away from school
Over 90% of the pandemic-era funds were spent before the January 2025 deadline.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the targeted support led to:
25%
increase in identification rates for students
5%
drop in absenteeism
Higher
graduation rates compared with pre-pandemic levels
With our continued support, SchoolHouse Connection is now working to ensure that success continues. Their work to highlight the life-altering impact of $129 million in annual federal funds for students experiencing homelessness, which were at risk of elimination, ensured that those funds continue to reach the students who need it most.
They have also pushed to give communities more flexibility in how federal funds can be used, and are helping schools put that money toward the students who need it most.
Spotlight
Barbara Duffield
Executive Director, SchoolHouse Connection
SchoolHouse Connection works to overcome homelessness through early care and education. They advocate for policies that support youth, and provide hands-on help to the schools, educational institutions, and care providers that are closest to young people experiencing homelessness. Their youth leadership and scholarship program helps young people who have experienced homelessness access higher education.
With support from the Raikes Foundation, we’re able to do everything from policy work to technical assistance to raising public awareness so we can help schools improve identification, enrollment, attendance, and success of students experiencing homelessness.
Barbara Duffield
Building Multi-State Momentum
How can we scale what’s working and help states end youth homelessness?
The progress we’ve seen in Washington State is inspiring other states to ramp up efforts to address youth homelessness. Successful strategies in Washington that are being adopted more broadly include:
- Targeted funding for students experiencing homelessness
- Dedicated staffing focused on young people without stable housing
- Establishing state-level offices to oversee and drive innovation in youth homelessness prevention and response
We see huge potential in supporting collaboration and knowledge sharing among states that are committed to these strategic, evidence-based approaches.
In September 2025, we hosted an event in Kansas City, Missouri, that brought together state policymakers, advocates, researchers, state education agency leaders, district administrators, and young people to discuss strategies for building on Washington State’s progress.
We have also established a multi-state Momentum Fund to support seven states interested in adopting successful strategies to address youth homelessness.
Initiatives we’re funding range from developing statewide collaborations to training young people who have experienced homelessness to participate in state grantmaking processes.
Our focus in 2026 and beyond
- Supporting efforts to scale and share best practices for youth homelessness prevention
- Using Washington State’s success in improving outcomes for students experiencing homelessness to inspire commitment and expand best practices in other states
- Helping improve coordination and knowledge sharing about youth homelessness crisis response across more communities
- Expanding the field focused on housing stability for youth and broadening support for proven and new solutions, including through the Acceleration Fund, a new pooled fund that helps donors direct resources toward strategic efforts to reduce youth homelessness in Washington State
