Report

Youth experiencing homelessness often have supportive kin, chosen family, mentors, or other caring adults in their lives. Sometimes these supports give youth a safe place to stay. But even when informal shared housing is otherwise safe and comfortable, it can be unstable. Youth homeless services and prevention programs are seldom designed to help youth and informal hosts work toward stability. Similarly, renter protections and public benefits policies currently fail to address the barriers faced by renters who host. 

This report elevates the positive potential of informal shared housing with kin and chosen family. We present current evidence on benefits, risks, and barriers in these arrangements, and possible paths forward. 

Policy Brief 

In 2017, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness identified “permanent connections” as one of the four federal outcomes for addressing youth homelessness, alongside stable housing, social and emotional well-being, and employment or education. However, federal agencies currently use different definitions of who and what counts as a permanent connection. 

In this policy brief, we make the case that federal agencies should establish a shared definition of permanent connections with a focus on supportive informal and intergenerational relationships.  

Practice Brief 

Host home programs partner with community members who provide housing for a young person at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Most host home programs currently recruit volunteer hosts who are paired with youth they don’t know, sometimes called “stranger-match” hosting. But some programs work with youth who are already staying with an informal host or have youth identify potential hosts from their existing support network. 

This practice brief summarizes the differences between these two approaches to the host home model and the potential benefits of chosen family or kinship hosting.