Specifics on improving data on homeless youth
Provide more specifics on improving data on homeless youth
While the current plan states the intention to obtain more comprehensive data on the scope of youth homelessness, the plan should provide more specifics on how to do this. USICH and its federal partners should provide clear guidance for how communities can better enumerate homeless youth, particularly unsheltered homeless youth, during point-in-time counts. USICH and its federal partners could also conduct a more extensive evaluation of current programming dedicated to homeless youth by analyzing available intake and outcome data from those programs. Lastly, the merging of HMIS and RHYMIS should be a top priority for involved federal agencies and local communities. And, technical assistance needs related to the merge for local data administrators and providers who would be inputting data should be identified and planned for.
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Anonymous commented
Once again, I note that schools and public education are missing from the comments about improving our data on homeless youth... There are a significant number of unaccompanied homeless youth UNDER THE AGE OF 18 that are not runaways, but ARE enrolled in schools and couch-surfing among friends and relatives (as well as strangers... ). IF WE ARE TO SERVE THIS POPULATION, WE NEED TO COORDINATE DATA AND SERVICES WITH PUBLIC SCHOOLS.