Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) (42 U.S.C. 5601)
RHYA 2013 Reauthorization Working Group’s[1]
Recommendations for 2013 Reauthorization
The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) (42 U.S.C. 5601) authorizes grant programs that provide critical services to homeless, runaway, and street youth. In every American community, youth run away from home, are kicked out of their home, exit the juvenile justice system with nowhere to go, become orphans and/or exit the child welfare system with no supports to enable successful transitions to adulthood. RHYA provides three different grants to public and nonprofit private agencies that reach out to unaccompanied youth on the streets and provide emergency shelter, basic life necessities, family reconnection, education and vocational training, and when necessary, longer-term housing options.
Homeless and runaway youth live on the fringes of gaping holes in America’s mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, substance abuse, and education systems. Runaway and homeless youth (RHY) programs are exceptional at serving the youth who access their programs. However, the capacity of these programs are not to scale to address the magnitude of youth homelessness in America. Many programs do not have enough beds for the youth in their community who need a safe place to stay. This reauthorization can expand the capacity of these programs through increasing the resources and supports the programs receive so they can provide more effective services and serve all runaway and homeless youth in their communities. This includes using emerging best and evidence-informed practices to provide effective services for trafficked, exploited, rejected, street-involved, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), and pregnant youth.
Unaccompanied homeless youth experience high rates of victimization, exploitation, human trafficking, juvenile justice and child welfare involvement, and detrimental health effects. Developmentally appropriate and readily accessible trauma-informed services are critical to providing safety, health and healing to these young people. Our recommendations are as follows:
Extend Family Intervention and Reconnection Services
§ Recommendation: Extend family intervention and reconnection services to Transitional Living Programs (TLPs), when safe and appropriate.
Justification: 69% of youth who exit Basic Center Programs (BCPs) return home as a result of effective family intervention work and it is safe for the youth to return. Extending these same services to Transitional Living Program (TLP) participants, when safe, will increase the number of youth who heal relationships with their family and community. Even if the family reconnection does not change where the young person lives, extensive data has shown that positive family interactions significantly increase the likelihood that a young person will develop into a healthy, whole, and independent adult.
§ Recommendation: The definition of family for purposes of family reconnection, counseling, and reunification-related services should include all persons the youth identifies as family, including unrelated individuals in and outside of the family household.
Justification: All persons who reside in the same residence as the young person or are significantly involved in the life of the youth in other ways, impact the youth. Therefore, in order to have the most effective family interventions, with the goal being reunification or an alternative safe option, all persons identified as “family” by the youth, whether part of the nuclear family or not, should be included in the counseling and/or interventions available.
National Study and Reporting Requirements
§ Recommendation: Appropriate $3 million, in line with the President’s FY 14 budget, to conduct a National Study of the Incidence, Prevalence and Characteristics of homeless youth in America, as required in the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act of 2008. This study has not been conducted yet.
Justification: The mandate to study the prevalence, needs and characteristics of homeless youth became law in 2008, but has never been conducted due to a lack of funding. The provision of safe housing and developmentally appropriate services for homeless youth has been chronically inadequate at meeting the critical need. Often, the lack of data about the extent of youth homelessness in America is the reason cited by policymakers and federal administrators to continue this pattern of persistent underfunding.
§ Recommendation: Require RHY programs to collect specific data on the number of clients they serve who are victims of human trafficking, as defined under 22 USC §7102(9). This data should be disaggregated to include youth who are coerced or forced into commercial sex acts, youth who are coerced or forced into other forms of labor, and minors who engage in commercial sex for other reasons. Also, RHY programs should be required to collect specific data on youth 18-24 who are engaged in commercial sex.
Justification: In light of the prioritization of data collection in the Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States 2013-2017 and the necessity of RHY programs to assess and effectively address the needs of homeless youth; understanding the prevalence of trafficking and exploitation, in addition to identifying which youth need specialized trafficking and exploitation victim services, is important to effectively serving these youth and locking up traffickers. It is also important for service providers to utilize a uniform definition when identifying this population. Data collected should include all sex trafficking as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) (22 U.S.C. §7102), which includes what is often referred to in the RHY community as “survival sex;” specifically, the giving or receiving of anything of value (for example, money, drugs, shelter, food, clothes, etc.) in exchange for a sex act with a minor. Given the definition of youth by the RHY community, this data collection should be extended to include exploitation in the form of “survival sex” for youth 18 to 24 years old.
§ Recommendation: Require RHY programs to collect specific data on the number of clients they serve who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT).
Justification: Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth are disproportionately represented in America’s homeless youth population. LGBT youth who are homeless, often become homeless due to familial rejection and ejection from the home. Once homeless, LGBT youth are at high risk of being victimized and/or committing suicide. To scale the evidence-informed services to meet the needs of this vulnerable population, an accurate estimate of the number of youth who need these services is necessary.
§ Recommendation: Require RHY programs to collect specific data on the number of clients they serve who are pregnant or parenting.
Justification: Pregnant and parenting youth and their children face unique struggles and challenges when homeless. Some youth become homeless because they are pregnant, often when a parent or caregiver ejects the youth from their home. Other homeless youth become pregnant after they are homeless and faces serious challenges in caring for themselves. Homeless youth parents need specialized care to overcome the numerous difficulties they experience. To scale appropriate services to this population, accurate estimations of the number of youth who need these services is necessary.
§ Recommendation: Require RHY programs to collect specific data on the number of clients they serve who have current or had past involvement in either or both the child welfare system and criminal justice system.
Justification: System involved youth are at higher risk of being homeless or running away. In light of Pathways for Youth: Draft Strategic Plan for Federal Collaboration prepared by the Interagency Working Group on Youth (February 2013) it is important to fully understand more clearly the numbers of youth that are either exiting these systems to homelessness and/or involved with these systems while homeless or unstably housed. If system are truly going to collaborate more effectively and efficiently for youth, RHY programs need to count all the youth that walk through their doors to receive services. These numbers will increase the understanding of how youth move through these systems.
Prioritization
§ Recommendation: Retract language that prioritizes grant applications requesting less than $200,000.
Justification: RHY grant amounts have not significantly increased since 1992. The majority of RHY programs find it difficult to provide the comprehensive services required under the Act with the current funding grant amounts. Removing this priority will enable applicants to stop requesting funding levels below their actual need.
Capacity Building
§ Recommendation: Increase overall funding for RHY programs to $300 million. NOTE: We would like the maximum grant levels for individual grants to be increased above $200,000 per year only if the overall appropriation level is increased to at least $200 million.
Justification: Runaway and homeless youth programs have received flat funding since 2009 and regularly pool community resources, which are unstable and inconsistent, to address the needs of the population they serve. RHY providers are only able to provide quality interventions if they have the resources to build relationships with youth on the streets and are able to provide them with basic life necessities, such as a safe place to live, food, clothing, etc. Funding levels should be increased to match and appropriately service the serious need. Spending the money to assist youth on the street is a cost saving measure in the long run, saves lives, and increases the number of productive, grateful, and contributing community members. Providing safe places for runaway, homeless and street-involved youth to live, heal, grow and learn prevents victimization, trafficking, criminal justice involvement, chronic adult homelessness, and serious mental and physical health deterioration.
§ Recommendation: To allow for other federal funding streams targeted to runaway and homeless youth service providers to be administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the percentages in Sec. 388(a)(3)(B) of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) should not preclude HHS from administering other federal funding streams. The percentages distributing the RHYA appropriations should be limited to RHYA appropriated dollars only and not applied to other money targeted to RHY programs.
Justification: The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has over 35 years of institutional knowledge and experience in administering grants to runaway and homeless youth programs in America. Continuing to use their expertise to administer grants to these programs, no matter what funding stream the grant money originates from, is paramount to providing efficient, skilled, and effective federal grant administration.
· Recommendation: Allow RHYA funds count towards the required HUD match.
Justification: In light of the priority for collaboration and leveraging of federal resources to increase outputs, allowing youth serving programs to leverage the federal funding they receive from a different federal agency to go towards their HUD match would increase a youth program’s ability to access HUD funding. Right now, many programs are prohibited from using RHYA funds received towards their HUD match, which results in less HUD funds being funneled to RHYA programs.
Training
§ Recommendation: Increase resources for staff training, including on-site and web-based options, such as on-demand and online learning.
Justification: To be effective, RHY program staff need to be “experts” at many different things, including youth development, relationship building with youth who have been traumatized and rejected, trauma-informed care, family acceptance and reconnection, cultural competence, gender-responsive services, best practices, suicide prevention, building collaborative relationships, data collection, and regulation compliance.
§ Recommendation: Provide resources and training to RHY service providers focused on best practices for serving homeless and runaway youth who identify as LGBT.
Justification: Family reconnection services and staff-established relationships with youth are integral parts of the RHY service intervention model which acknowledges that these youth will not fully engage in the services provided unless they first feel welcome and trust the program staff. Family intervention work is a best practice for these youth where family conflict, dysfunction, and rejection are the leading causes of youth homelessness. The specific family conflict that led to the youth leaving or being ejected from their home, will determine the best family intervention model to utilize.
§ Recommendation: Provide resources and training to RHY service providers to serve homeless and runaway youth who are currently being or have previously been trafficked.
Justification: RHY programs are often in contact with and serve victims of human trafficking and exploitation. Some programs have taken great efforts at providing victim-centered services for this subpopulation. However, many programs do not have the resources to provide the comprehensive, trauma-informed, gender-responsive services these trafficked and exploited youth need. They also often times do not have access to meet the specialized legal needs of this population. Training in identification and best practices in serving trafficked and exploited youth is in line with the Administration’s Federal Strategic Action Plan on Services for Victims of Human Trafficking in the United States.
§ Recommendation: Provide resources and training to equip RHY service providers to verify college-bound youth and youth attending higher education as unaccompanied and homeless for the purposes of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Justification: The FAFSA requires all students who are not considered “independent” to provide financial information from their parents or guardians in order to determine student eligibility for aid; the application also requires a parental/guardian signature. While these requirements are logical for most applicants, they create an insurmountable barrier for unaccompanied homeless youth, who do not receive financial support from their parents and do not have access to parental information. In recognition of these barriers, the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-84) expanded the definition of “independent student” to include youth who are verified as unaccompanied and homeless during the school year in which they apply for aid. RHY service providers are one of four statutorily authorized verifiers. However, although this policy has been in place for five years, data indicate that RHY providers have been verifying fewer students over time: from 20,064 students in 2009-2010 (representing 43% of all students indicating homelessness on the FAFSA), to just 5,471 students in 2012-2013 (only 20% of those indicating homelessness on the FAFSA). On-going training about this important responsibility will help ensure youth served by RHY programs can access federal financial aid.
Language
§ Recommendation: Replace the word “prostitution” with “human trafficking, expanding sexual exploitation to youth 18 to 24 years of age.”