What do we know about youth homelessness interventions?

Background

The first Living Note highlights an open-access systematic review of intervention effectiveness studies for youth homelessness from 2008-2017 or our phase 1 data

Study:Interventions for youth homelessness: A systematic review of effectiveness studies
Authors: Matthew H. Morton, Shannon Kugley, Richard Epstein, and Anne Farrell
Journal:Children and Youth Services Review
Link:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105096

This review synthesized evidence on interventions to prevent and address youth homelessness. The review searched academic databases, institutional websites, and unpublished sources, and included studies from OECD countries focused on youth ages 13–25. The authors identified 4,387 potentially relevant publications and ultimately included 66 publications representing 53 unique studies and 54 interventions.

What the review found

The review found that the evidence base for youth homelessness interventions had grown, but remained uneven.

The largest body of evidence focused on individual counseling and treatment interventions, especially programs addressing mental health, substance use, sexual health, and other health-risk behaviors. Many of these studies showed promising short-term improvements, but fewer measured long-term outcomes or direct housing outcomes.

The review also found some promising evidence for interventions that reduced homelessness or housing instability. These included some forms of rental assistance with wraparound supports, supportive housing, and intensive case management, including case management models that did not always provide direct housing assistance.

At the same time, the review found that many program models commonly used by communities had limited rigorous evaluation evidence. These included street outreach, transitional living programs, youth shelters, host homes, and rapid rehousing. The authors emphasized that these models may be important in practice, but the available research base was not yet strong enough to draw firm conclusions about their effectiveness.

Key evidence gaps

Several gaps stood out.

First, the field needs more rigorous and long-term evaluations of shelter, housing, outreach, employment, education, and family-based interventions.

Second, many studies did not measure housing outcomes directly. This matters because programs may improve mental health, service connection, or well-being without showing whether they prevent or reduce homelessness.

Third, the review found limited evidence on how interventions work for specific groups of young people who are disproportionately affected by homelessness, including Black youth, Hispanic youth, LGBTQ+ youth, pregnant and parenting youth, and youth in rural communities.

Why this matters

The review shows that the youth homelessness field does not have a simple answer to the question, “What works?”

Some intervention areas are promising, especially counseling, treatment, supportive housing, and intensive case management. But the evidence is still incomplete, and many widely used models need stronger evaluation.

For policy and practice, this means two things can be true at the same time:

Communities need to act now to support young people experiencing homelessness.

And the field also needs stronger, more inclusive, and more practice-relevant evidence to guide those decisions over time.

Future Living Notes

Future posts will share brief updates from ongoing and under-review studies connected to this living evidence project.

Planned topics include:

• newer youth homelessness intervention studies published after the earlier review period;

• what has changed in the evidence base since the first systematic review;

• where newer studies add evidence, and where gaps remain;

• how intervention evidence differs across housing, outreach, health, education, employment, family support, and systems-level programs;

• reflections on how evidence can better support communities and policymakers.

Some materials are still under review and will be shared only after they are ready for public release.

Invitation to readers

Living Notes is meant to be a shared learning space.

If you are a researcher, practitioner, policy analyst, advocate, student, or community partner working on youth homelessness, this page is an invitation to think with us.

What evidence is most useful for your work?

What intervention questions remain unanswered?

What kinds of studies would better support decision-making in your community?

What should a living evidence base for youth homelessness include?

The hope is that Living Notes can become a place where research findings are not just posted, but discussed, questioned, and connected to real-world decisions