Housing for Aging out Youth: Developmental Needs during the Transition to Adulthood

Purpose: One of the major challenges facing the over twenty thousand youth who age out of foster care each year is homelessness (Courtney, Piliavin, Grogan-Kaylor, & Nesmith, 2001). For these aging out youth (AOY) developmental trajectories into adulthood are often complicated by personal, social, and systemic factors that impede gradual entry into adulthood, leaving the period of “emerging adulthood” truncated. Despite the unique developmental needs of AOY, housing services for them often mimic adult services, for example Housing First. This qualitative study seeks to understand if and how supportive housing can help AOY.  Open-ended questions were asked by facilitators for the purpose of eliciting broad and comprehensive responses about the service needs of AOY, their goals and dreams, and meaningful relationships.

Methods: Four focus groups were conducted in an urban transitional living facility for AOY in New York City. Each focus group lasted 60-90 minutes with 6-9 residents. The mean age of participants was 22.4 years; 46% were female; 57.7% identified as Black, 30.8% as multiracial, 7.7% as Native American, and 3.8% Asian. Each group had two facilitators. Focus groups were professionally transcribed verbatim. Four analysts read each transcript individually, marking passages of text relevant to the research questions. Then, each analyst independently engaged in inductive coding and constant comparison within and between transcripts developing a set of initial codes (i.e., “living the life of living rent”) and grouped codes (i.e., Program participation) to discuss as a team.  Analysts came together multiple times to compare and contrast codes and grouped codes. Discrepancies were resolved through consensus.  This process led to a project codebook, which constitutes the results presented below.

Results: The following themes emerged: 1) “Manchild phase”: AOY are ambivalent about their move to independence and self-sufficiency, reporting that the housing made them feel like a manchild, 2) Program mixed messages: Program rules and structure send mixed messages about behavioral expectations, conflicting between increased demands of adulthood (budgeting, self-care, apartment maintenance), and rules perceived as inhibitive or overly controlling (building access, guest monitoring), 3) Helpful staff “Go above and beyond”: Staff that were prepared to step out of their job descriptions and cross boundaries were often perceived to be most helpful, and interestingly they were perceived to put their job at risk by doing so; 4) AOY often perceive a mismatch between staff skills and AOY concerns, particularly in providing instrumental help in the area of  housing and employment.

Implications: These results demonstrated the importance of developmentally appropriate services for AOY. Typical of emerging adults, AOY often have complex needs that simultaneously focus on attaining independence and providing a safe environment to grow. Extending supportive programs developed for adults is insufficient for meeting the needs of AOY. To be effective, housing programs for AOY need to offer material, emotional, and social support to AOY who are appropriately ambivalent about their own move to adulthood and independence.  Future research should focus on development and implementation of service-integrated housing programs that are age appropriate for AOY.