HUD FYI Voucher Requirements Update
"It felt like surviving another system alone."
That's how one young person described applying for a housing voucher after leaving foster care.
Their experience is one of many captured in The Long Road Home, a forthcoming Think of Us report based on 104 surveys and 15 interviews we conducted this year with young adults who had navigated the Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) voucher process firsthand.
When youth received a voucher, it was transformative. Having safe and stable housing gave them the foundation for a successful transition out of care. But across nearly every stage of the process, young people also described barriers. Youth told us vouchers were hard to access, sometimes because housing agencies said they had to keep them for families who needed them more. They told us precarious financial and housing situations - couch surfing or staying in a hotel they weren’t sure they could afford the next night - were not enough to qualify for help they needed. They told us of delay after delay, for reasons they did not understand.
Young people also brought these experiences directly to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner and other senior government officials during roundtables in Denver, Pittsburgh, and San Antonio this year. These roundtables were inspired by First Lady Melania Trump’s focus on youth aging out of foster care and her desire to make the system work better to support them.
Shortly after concluding the conversations with youth, Think of Us met with the Office of the First Lady and top officials from the HUD, the Treasury Department, the Administration for Children and Families, and the White House Office of Management and Budget to make recommendations for how the administration could address the concerns young people raised.
Today, parts of that message became policy. HUD announced changes intended to remove several barriers young people identified, including:
- Removing the cap on how many vouchers a housing authority can request, so agencies can respond to actual need;
- Dropping the rule that forced housing authorities to nearly exhaust a separate voucher program before they could even apply for FYI vouchers;
- Broadening who counts as "at risk of homelessness" to include young people who are couch surfing, living in hotels/motels or overcrowded units, leaving institutions, and more; and
- Clarifying that youth earning up to 50% of area median income can be eligible, if they meet other conditions of risk.
These changes will result in more Public Housing Authorities drawing down more FYI vouchers and providing housing to more youth transitioning from care.
Thank you to HUD and the Office of the First Lady for listening and moving quickly.
But this belongs to the young people who kept telling the truth about their own lives, in surveys, in interviews, and in rooms with the people who could actually do something about it. They spoke. Leaders listened. The system changed.
