Our Goal

The goal of the Youth Housing Initiative is to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness in San Francisco by building a more coordinated, prevention-focused housing system. We aim to reduce the number of young people who fall into homelessness and ensure they can access and maintain stable housing over time.

our approach

San Francisco’s housing crisis continues to be one of the city’s most urgent challenges. Despite significant public investment, too many young people are still falling into homelessness. Most are not chronically homeless. They are young people who lose housing because of family instability, financial shocks, or transitions out of systems like foster care, juvenile justice, or behavioral health.

Our work focuses on youth and young adults and prioritizes prevention as the most effective way to reduce homelessness over time. We are also focused on strengthening housing options for those who are already experiencing homelessness. The goal is to intervene earlier, especially at key transition points, so fewer young people enter the system in the first place.

To do this, we invest in four areas:

  1. Prevention for youth and young adults at highest risk, including those connected to foster care, juvenile justice, schools, and behavioral health systems. This includes early identification, flexible funding supporting programs implemented by partner organizations, and wraparound services.
  2. Better alignment across housing, education, health, and justice systems so young people experience seamless, coordinated support. This includes improved data sharing, cross-agency collaboration, and shared goals focused on keeping young people safely housed.
  3. Expanding housing options for youth and young adults, including transitional housing, rapid rehousing, scattered site leasing, and long-term affordable housing that supports independent living.
  4. Research, policy, and advocacy to improve how the system works and to support long-term changes that reduce youth homelessness at scale.

If you’re a youth advocate, community leader, nonprofit leader, researcher, or someone working in this space, we’d love to hear from you. Share your work and ideas with us: [email protected].