How housing-insecure youth are redefining policy, planning, and engagement to address homelessness in Ithaca, New York

The number of youth experiencing homelessness in the United States increased by 15% between 2022 and 2023. This growing crisis has had widespread negative impacts for young people’s mental and physical health and educational outcomes, while also increasing their likelihood of being arrested and experiencing future homelessness as an adult.

To address this pressing challenge, some localities are turning to formerly or currently homeless youth to influence policy and planning on the issue. This momentum—catalyzed in part by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) 2016 Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP)—provides much-overdue recognition that people impacted by homelessness have the expertise needed to solve it. By requiring communities to establish Youth Action Boards (YAB) consisting of young people with lived homelessness experience, the YHDP offers critical resources for localities to develop and implement collaborative plans for homelessness reduction designed by and for young people closest to the issue. 

In 2021, Tompkins County (home to Ithaca, N.Y.) joined the effort to center youth voice in homelessness policy and planning by establishing a YAB tasked with co-creating a Coordinated Community Plan to guide the implementation of a $2 million annual HUD grant to address homelessness. This piece focuses on the story of this effort and offers concrete insights for other localities looking to meaningfully and sustainably center youth in homelessness policy and decisionmaking processes.  

The power of valuing lived experience to craft more humane and effective homelessness policy  

In Tompkins County, estimates suggest that 21% of all people experiencing homelessness are under the age of 25. Disparities are common among the county’s homeless youth population: Even though 77% of the county’s population identifies as non-Hispanic white, more than half of homeless youth are people of color. In addition, at least 15% of all young people in the county experience at least one key risk factor for youth homelessness—including poverty, family housing insecurity, involvement in the child welfare system, and/or involvement in the juvenile justice system—meaning that the scale of youth homelessness could be much greater than existing data suggest.  

The Ithaca YAB was formed in 2021 with these challenges in mind. Comprised of young people (ages 16 to 24) with diverse identities and involvement in the county’s homeless response system, the YAB co-created a Coordinated Community Plan that outlines a vision for reforming that system.  

The community plan focused on four key values: 

1. Youth power and equity: Acknowledge that youth have the experience necessary to make revolutionary change in the system. 
2. Community connection: Recognize the need to foster connection and cohesion among homeless and housing-insecure youth. 
3. Mutual aid: Establish a network of care to ensure access to resources and stable housing for youth. 
4. Safety: Commit to harm reduction while creating pathways to help young people navigate violent systems. 

​​​With the funding HUD provided, the Ithaca YAB codified these values into key early investments, including supporting local nonprofit the Learning Web to act as an instrumental implementation partner in the 16-unit scattered-site permanent supportive housing project it is developing. Additionally, the YAB now has two members on the local Community of Care’s (CoC) Governance Board—the decisionmaking body responsible for developing new supportive housing and programs for at-risk youth throughout the county.  

Lessons learned: Active support is needed for long-term success 

Three years since its founding, the Ithaca YAB is now asking a key question: What long-term infrastructure is necessary for Youth Action Boards to be sustainable both within and outside of HUD’s YHDP initiative? 

Despite initial success, several factors have impeded the Ithaca YAB’s continuation, which took a hiatus in November 2023 due to lack of funding. The YAB renewed operations in October 2024, and its learnings thus far indicate five key conditions that can improve YAB stability and effectiveness over the long term:  

1. Adequate and equitable funding: The Ithaca YAB is funded by CoC Planning Grant funds and previously lacked a sufficient budget to pay YAB members to actively engage in the work—allocating only a few hours a month for surface-level advisory positions. To maintain success, YABs should have funding to equitably compensate members for time to work on projects, consider adopting an employment model instead of a stipend model to pay YAB members, and provide young people with the employment stability and tax categorization necessary to maintain their efforts.  
2. Respectful collaboration: ​​​​Many young people in leadership positions, including members of the Ithaca YAB, reported facing adultism within their policy and plan development, and were not fully valued by their older adult partners because of their age and experience. To be truly effective, collaborations between organizations and community members require intentional trust-building and power-sharing, as well as the intentional valuation of lived experience from people of all ages.  
3. Intentional governance: Thus far, the Ithaca YAB has operated with a horizontal structure with no clear leadership arrangement. This has, at times, resulted in difficulty maintaining consistent membership. Ithaca stakeholders believe YABs should have defined roles, with a core support/mentor role and multiple leaders working on tasks that move the board beyond existing as an advisory body to one that is empowered and engaged in decisionmaking. 
4. Defined goals outside of HUD’s YHDP: Since many YABs are founded because of YHDP requirements, they often have difficulty finding a community foothold outside of YHDP projects. Community partners should collaborate with youth in identifying and achieving goals outside of the YHDP. ​​​​In Ithaca, for instance, YAB representation on the local CoC Governance Board helps the work extend beyond the scope of YHDP projects. 
5. Professional development: Young people are necessary for this work because of their lived experience and expertise, but often do not understand the workings of the system enough to make wide-scale change. Host organizations should facilitate professional development opportunities and provide mentorship for YAB members. 

A path forward for Youth Action Boards  

As YABs continue to proliferate across the nation—with 110 communities having received the YHDP grant as of 2023—it is imperative that members receive the proper support to thrive within their leadership roles. By empowering youth leaders through equitable pay and employment opportunities, collaborative partnerships built on mutual trust, clear organizational structure and expectations, assistance in pursuing goals outside of the scope of YHDP projects, and abundant training opportunities, YABs will have the power to make impactful, systemwide changes within their communities.