The New York Community Trust works to make New York City a vital and secure place in which to live and work. The Trust tackles nearly all aspects of life in New York City, including addressing the needs of homeless youth and families. Committed to sticking with significant issues that don't lend themselves to quick or easy solutions, the Trust takes on projects that utilize new approaches to long-standing issues and that tackle emerging problems and opportunities.
With the support of the New York Community Trust, CSH has been working to ensure transition-age youth can access high-quality youth supportive housing in New York City through researching data and targeting tools, improving quality in youth supportive housing, and advocating for the creation of new youth supportive housing. The Trust has supported CSH in bringing together a group of youth supportive housing providers for a “Learning Lab” to develop a common framework of high-quality youth supportive housing. This framework will be utilized in a peer-evaluation tool and to inform new resources for youth supportive housing. CSH has partnered with the Mayor’s Office Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence to understand the experience of Transition Age Youth as they move through the housing and service system. CSH is leveraging the findings of this initiative to inform youth housing access and advocate for new youth units to be created in the next New York/New York Supportive Housing agreement. Mary Noto, the Assistant Program Director at SCO Family of Services and one of the participants in the Learning Lab said “Having forums, such as this Learning Lab, to make recommendations that reflect the lessons learned by those already providing services is an imperative part of advocacy and system reform. Participation in the CSH Learning Lab has enhanced the opportunity for us as providers to deepen the dialogue around the quality of youth supportive housing being operated in NYC. We know that this work significantly enhances the advocacy efforts for more youth supportive housing.”
CSH will be hosting a Transition Age Youth Forum on September 22, 2015 to bring together a cross-sector group for a fishbowl discussion. The Forum will focus on the current youth housing options and the referral system to help inform key system-level recommendations.
