Evaluation of the HUD Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program : Early Implementation Report

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded funds to 10 Continuums of Care (CoCs) in round one of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) to enable them to develop and implement coordinated community approaches to preventing and ending youth homelessness. In 2017 HUD launched a 4-year evaluation of the 10 CoCs funded in round one. The evaluation will capture how the demonstration affects the development and implementation of comprehensive systems-level approaches across diverse contexts in addressing youth homelessness.This report provides an assessment of the YHDP CoCs’ planning efforts during the two-year planning phase of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program grants. Summarized here are the 10 YHDP CoCs’ baseline status of services, housing, and system development, assessed through document review and site visits. The report also provides comparable baseline data for three peer non-YHDP funded CoCs, each selected to be similar to one or more YHDP communities and to serve as a basis for examining differences over time between YHDP-funded and non-funded CoCs. Through analysis of Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) data the report describes the number and composition of youth experiencing homelessness across all sites, the HUD-funded services they received, and their housing outcomes prior to the implementation of the coordinated community plans