Youth homelessness is declining in California. Funding cuts threaten progress

Tucked between the homes of an East Palo Alto neighborhood, there’s a small yellow building.

Inside, on a weekday in late November, young people — ranging in age from adolescence to early adulthood — were busy at work. They helped each other with homework, met with therapists, and hosted discussions about leadership and political education.

Although Youth United for Community Action (YUCA) has all the hallmarks of a typical community center, the nonprofit’s mission is more specific: to serve homeless youth.

Out back, youth mentor Lavain Henderson, 22, showed off a vegetable garden and chicken den, where members can harvest produce and gather freshly-laid eggs.

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Henderson became homeless when he was around 18 and, over a five-year span, bounced between at least four different homeless organizations throughout California. But he struggled to find community. YUCA was different, he said, because it was run by and for young people.

“There weren’t spaces where I could learn the skills that I need to survive,” he said.

Organizations like YUCA are credited with contributing to a recent drop in youth homelessness in California — a 24% reduction between 2019 and 2024 — according to a November report by nonprofit John Burton Advocates for Youth. The data is a silver lining amid rising homelessness nationwide, but advocates warn that recent state and federal funding changes could threaten that progress.

Simone Tureck Lee, one of the authors of the report, said that while the data used in the report is widely considered an undercount, it remains useful for tracking trends over time. She largely attributed the decline in youth homelessness to California’s investments in specifically addressing young people’s needs.

In fiscal year 2018, California began reserving 5% of homelessness funding for youth — what it calls the “youth set aside.” And by fiscal year 2021, the state had increased that set-aside to 10%.

During the same time period, it also increased the total amount of funding dedicated to addressing homelessness, with about $5 billion going into its Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP) since fiscal year 2019, according to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. With the funding, youth homelessness organizations can support young adults in a way organizations that cater to adults cannot, Tureck Lee said.

“We’re seeing something different than what’s happening nationally and what’s happening among the general population in California,” Tureck Lee said. “We really attribute those changes to these major state investments that came after years of lack of investment.”

According to Henderson, the other shelters and community centers he once relied on rarely provided him with the resources he needed.

That changed when he found YUCA. Unlike other programs, Henderson said, YUCA was better able to meet his needs.

“I don’t think I was able to care for myself like how I’m supposed to,” he said. “There was a lot of things falling through the cracks. I’m still working on myself as a person, but I’ve definitely come a long way.”

For Henderson, those needs weren’t just physical, like food and shelter; they were emotional, as well. YUCA gave him a sense of community that he hadn’t experienced with other organizations.

“I didn’t believe that I deserved to have community,” he said, adding that YUCA “definitely opened my eyes to how important having a community is.”

But in November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued new guidelines for homelessness funding. The changes include tighter restrictions on which organizations qualify for support and how funds can be used, a change that Tureck Lee said could impact youth homelessness organizations in California.

And in the current state budget, lawmakers set aside no new funding for HHAP, though they earmarked $500 million for the program in fiscal year 2026.

Tureck Lee said she expects the loss of HHAP funds this year to have a greater impact on youth-specific organizations than the loss of federal funding in California. But she’s still concerned about what the federal changes might mean for counties like Alameda or Los Angeles, which she said will now have to compete for federal funding, rather than being able to take advantage of the youth set-aside in HHAP.

The federal government has said it will penalize organizations that provide benefits to people who are undocumented or that recognize transgender people, for instance, Tureck Lee said.

“All of these values that the Trump administration is very attached to are inserted into the criteria for scoring applications from all these communities,” she said.

Katie Barnett, a community organizer with the policy and advocacy organization, All Home, said the changes pose a serious risk to the progress made in reducing youth homelessness, as well as to the entire homeless population across California.

“This is going to have catastrophic ripple effects for every single community in the country, absolutely here in California, where we have not only the Bay Area, but also the Los Angeles area, which has some of the highest rates of specifically chronic and unsheltered homelessness nationwide,” she said.

Coco Auerswald, a UC Berkeley professor and homelessness researcher, said she expects the impact of the changes to be disastrous.

According to Auerswald, the real key to addressing overall homelessness is addressing youth homelessness, because homelessness among adults often begins in their youth.

“If we had been able to change their trajectory,” she said, “the numbers of people experiencing homelessness would be dramatically different.”

But, she said, the federal government hasn’t done enough to prioritize youth, comparing its approach to using a mop to clean a flooded floor, rather than turning off the faucet.

“We can’t keep up because the inflow of water is greater than our ability to remove water,” she said. “We have to turn off the faucet.”

In late November, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration sued the federal government over the funding changes, and in December, HUD subsequently rescinded the guidelines. But the agency has yet to issue new ones — leaving nonprofits like YUCA in limbo. In the meantime, Newsom announced $56 million in state grants specifically to address youth homelessness.

For Henderson, the stakes are personal. YUCA helped him develop the skills he needed as a young adult.

“I feel like that’s a lot of the work that we do,” he said. “Trying to get the youth to grow as people, to be future leaders. At the end of the day, they’re the future of everything.”