Build a conversation/interpretation on "Chronic/Vulnerable" homelessness that is inclusive of children to deepen Two-Gen service systems.
The category of "chronic" homelessness is not currently very useful for serving unaccompanied youth and children because we usually are highlighting health and criminal justice outcomes seen as a consequence of the category itself. Youth and children are far upstream of these visible consequences. Many children have been homeless for more than a year but are not enumerated in counts of "chronic" homelessness (though the family unit is). Quite simply, unaccompanied youth and children in homeless families haven't been around long enough to find themselves diagnosed or involved in criminal justice. However, scientific evidence-based conversations such as the ACE study allow us to have/start/build a conversation about how homelessness affects early childhood and adolescent development with certainty. We need a conversation that mobilizes terms such as "vulnerability" and "Chronic" further up the stream, prioritizing strategies that are Two-Generational. This shouldn't be thought of as "prevention." We should think of it in terms of Two-Generation service models that respond to predictable and demonstrated cognitive/emotional/physiological development outcomes happening now. We should devote energy to putting a price tag on the public cost of those outcomes (see Nurse Family Partnership) to mobilize deeper investment in Two-Generation services.