Session: Developing Housing Solutions for Youth and Young Adults Experiencing Homelessness (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Background and Purpose: One in ten young adults experiences homelessness each year, highlighting the need for connections to housing resources. But, there is limited evidence to support best approaches for effectively connecting youth to housing and then supporting them to achieve stability. This symposium brings together four papers that present innovative intervention development work grounded in approaches that center youth and democratize the process to inform development of new housing support interventions.

Methods and Results: The symposium papers utilize qualitative methods and employ adaptation frameworks to build interventions that can increase housing stability in youth and young adults

The first paper, Connecting Rural Minor Youth Experiencing Homelessness: A Process Evaluation of the Qualified Minor Verification Tool, uses qualitative data to examine provider experiences in utilizing an innovative tool to establish minor status, a barrier that prevents YEH from successfully connecting with housing resources. While displaying acceptability, the tool was not widely used and the study identifies potential routes to increase its utilization as an avenue for promoting housing connection.

The second paper, The complexity of belonging: Navigating tensions of inclusion and exclusion in young adult permanent supportive housing, utilizes a longitudinal qualitative analysis to examine experiences of 27 young adults in navigating housing and peer relationships in a permanent supportive housing (PSH) program at four time points from before move in to 18 months later. Findings highlight the tensions that emerged around substance use and the challenges of navigating the need for inclusivity while developing more tailored housing supports within the broad umbrella of PSH.

The third paper, Developing and evaluating Marsha and Marians Neighbors: A shared housing program model for LGBTQ+ youth, pregnant/parenting youth and youth at the intersection, describes the implementation and evaluation design of a shared housing program model that was developed to serve YEH who are LGBTQ+ and/or pregnant/parenting. Shared housing is a critical strategy since many youth are unable to pay rent without sharing cost burden. The program provides an example of the opportunities and challenges of developing research-informed program models and the need for centering youth voice.

The fourth paper, Applying the ADAPT-ITT framework to build an intervention to support young adults transitioning into housing, provides evidence of how a sequential adaptation framework was used to identify and then systematically adapted two evidence supported interventions to create a new intervention to support young adults transitioning into Rapid Rehousing. Multiple meetings with stakeholder working groups were critical and provide a model for co-creation with youth and agency staff to develop interventions within existing settings.

Conclusion: This symposium presents examples of interventions that can move our field toward successful housing outcomes for youth and young adults. Papers present intervention targets to improve outcomes for existing program models including permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing, better identification to promote housing connections for youth in rural communities, and a shared housing model for LGBTQ+ and pregnant and parenting youth. Our findings highlight the importance of co-creating with youth and providers to produce youth-centered interventions.23-->