Area of Expertise: Child Welfare Involved Families

This brief outlines how jurisdictions can better align, sequence, and layer federal, state, and local resources to support young people transitioning from foster care into emerging adulthood. It identifies gaps and challenges created by time-limited and uncoordinated programs and proposes a cross-sector alignment model for extending housing, education, employment, economic security, health, and well-being supports from ages 18 to 26.

Housing as a Foundational Element of Family Well-Being

Housing as a Foundational Element of Family Well-Being shares key insights and lessons from a six‑month national learning collaborative convened by Casey Family Programs, CSH (Corporation for Supportive Housing), and Chapin Hall. Developed in response to growing evidence that housing instability and family homelessness are major drivers of child welfare system involvement, the cohort created a shared learning space for state housing and child welfare leaders to align policy, practice, and resources in an increasingly complex funding and policy environment.

Cross-sector leadership teams from New Jersey, Colorado, Kentucky, and Oregon participated in peer learning, tailored technical assistance, and state‑hosted site sessions that highlighted innovations, surfaced challenges, and advanced practical solutions. By the end of the cohort, participants reported new ways of thinking about housing as a prevention strategy—reframing housing needs for decisionmakers, identifying cost‑saving opportunities, and exploring how to blend and braid funding to better support families. This brief captures those insights to inform policymakers, practitioners, and advocates working to strengthen family well‑being and prevent unnecessary child welfare involvement.

CSH estimates that there are approximately 90,000 families and youth in need of supportive housing, including 43,646 families with child welfare involvement. While lack of housing should not necessitate child welfare involvement, housing instability alongside additional challenges such as substance use or mental health needs can affect the overall placement decision. Access to permanent housing often means that families can stay together while receiving child welfare prevention services or reunify more quickly if children are in out-of-home care. Research has demonstrated that children and youth who have a reliable place to call home also spend fewer days in foster care, experience a reduction in subsequent abuse and neglect cases, reduce their risk of subsequent homelessness, and increase their school attendance.

Housing vouchers and rental assistance play a significant role in keeping families together and supporting youth in transitioning successfully into adulthood. While most housing vouchers are issued from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) via local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) , there are many states that have funded voucher and rental assistance programs for families and transition age youth. States like New Jersey, California, Washington, and Colorado have all developed and funded housing assistance to support child-welfare involved families and youth.

UPDATED March 2026

This worksheet provides an overview of the most common housing models and interventions, from short-term housing to long-term housing. It is important to provide families with timely access to housing options that meet their unique needs. However, communities often have limited housing resources and mismatches between family needs and available housing options. This worksheet helps community leaders understand the various housing models and identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities within their current family housing resources. By identifying these gaps, communities can develop strategies that keep families stably housed.

Acknowledgements
This resource was made possible in collaboration with:

• Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.
• Chapin Hall, an independent policy research center dedicated to improving the well-being of children, youth, and families.

This document provides a framework for practice in family supportive housing settings. It is intended to be a capacity-building tool for those who are designing or already providing case management services for families living in supportive housing. However, those in the supportive housing field are encouraged to further enhance this tool with their own experiences and practice protocols.

This guide is intended for supportive housing administrators and practitioners who are developing and involved in supportive housing efforts that serve families with children. Families being served by supportive housing efforts face a complex set of challenges including long-term and repeated homelessness, child welfare involvement, mental health issues, domestic violence, and a parental history of trauma. The instability, trauma and complex needs of these families not only impact their housing outcomes, but also their parenting and child development outcomes. Permanent supportive housing for these families provides a platform for adult healing, family strengthening and a healthier life course for the children and youth. To support a family’s ability to use the opportunity that supportive housing provides fully it will be important for supportive housing providers to build an environment that is both developmentally appropriate to the needs of children and responsive to the unique needs and pressures of parents.

This sample tenant manual was developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy in collaboration with the Corporation for Supportive Housing. It is specifically designed as a resource for supportive housing providers working with families, especially those families involved with the child welfare system. The goal was to develop a tenant manual that could be easily adapted for sites that are providing supportive housing for families. While it may be most useful to programs serving families at a single site such as an apartment building or a cluster of apartment units managed by the same housing provider, we encourage providers of scattered site housing to review and adapt with landlords as you find useful.

The Strong Families Fund is the largest pilot pay-for-performance project to finance Resident Service Coordination (RSC) in affordable housing for lower-income families. The initiative was created to measure the impact of resident service coordination on tenant and building performance within affordable housing. The performance-based contract approach helps to align all collaborating partners with a shared vision of success. This report reviews the results of the data collected through the first phase of the initiative. It demonstrates that using this performance-based approach to resident service coordination in affordable housing is a powerful way to increase economic mobility, health & well-being, housing stability, and community engagement and safety.

View the Executive Summary

These briefs present information on federal housing voucher programs, such as the Family Unification Program (FUP), that child welfare and housing leaders can use to stabilize families through cross-sector partnerships. These briefs provide strategies for successfully administering FUP vouchers and identifying FUP eligible families. They also dispel common myths around the administration of FUP vouchers, so that these critical housing resources can be leveraged to to help strengthen families and keep children safe. Part 2 focuses on how to work successfully with housing partners to administer FUP vouchers for families.

Informes de cupones de vivienda familiar para el bienestar infantil 

Estos informes presentan información sobre los programas federales de cupones de vivienda, como el programa de unificación familiar “Family Unification Program”(FUP), que los líderes de vivienda y bienestar infantil pueden utilizar para estabilizar a las familias a través de alianzas intersectoriales. Estos resúmenes brindan estrategias para administrar con éxito los cupones de FUP e identificar a las familias elegibles para FUP. También disipan los mitos comunes sobre la administración de los vales FUP, de modo que estos recursos de vivienda críticos puedan aprovecharse para ayudar a fortalecer a las familias y mantener a los niños seguros. 

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To access the Brief on Family Housing Vouchers – Part 1, follow the link below.

These briefs discuss how Family Unification Program (FUP) and Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) federal housing vouchers can support transition, wellbeing, and stability for youth/young adults’ transitions from foster care involvement with the child welfare system. Part 1 provides an overview of FUP and FYI vouchers. Part 2 offers a detailed guide to administering FUP and FYI vouchers for youth and young adults. 

The publications were made possible in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.

Informe: Cupones federales de vivienda para apoyar a los jóvenes en edad de transición 

Estos informes analizan como los cupones federales de vivienda en los programas programa de unificación familiar “Family Unification Program” (FUP) y el programa para jóvenes de crianza a la independencia “Foster Youth to Independence” (FYI) pueden apoyar la transición, el bienestar, y la estabilidad de los jóvenes y adultos jóvenes en su transición del cuidado temporal con el sistema de bienestar infantil. La parte 1 resume una descripción general de los cupones FUP/FYI. La parte 2 presenta una guía detallada para administrar los cupones de FUP y FYI para los jóvenes y adultos jóvenes.  

Las publicaciones fueron posibles en colaboración con Casey Family Programs, cuya misión es brindar, mejorar y, en última instancia, prevenir la necesidad de cuidado de crianza. 

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To access the Youth Housing Voucher Brief – Part 2, please follow the link below.