Peer Sharing & Learning on Youth Homelessness

The project enabled four 100-Day Challenge communities to come together in a 2-day intensive workshop to share how they pursued & achieved their ambitious goals. The teams, representing Marion County (OR), Mendocino County (CA), Franklin County (ME), & Gulf Coast (MS), drew lessons from each other's experience & prepared action plans and policy recommendations to embed and scale effective strategies and invigorate their communities' efforts.

All four communities shared what they achieved during the 100-days and key insights they gained during their 100-Day Challenge. Gulf Coast, Mississippi surpassed their 100-day goal to permanently house 50 youth experiencing homelessness and implement cross sector transition plans for 75 youth aging out of child welfare and juvenile justice to improve the percentage of youth who transition to stable, permanent housing solutions.

In 100-days, Mendocino county housed 39 transition age youth, compared to about 5 in the previous three months. To showcase their work the team created this video. Franklin County's goal was to  build a more coordinated system to better identify and support the homeless youth who present themselves and connect these youth, ages 14 to 22 to a safe place to be within 12 hours of identification. By day 100, the team, representing all youth homelessness service providers, had successfully housed 5 youth through their new system. Prior to that the organizations involved were delivering services but not helping young people exit homelessness.

In Marion County, their 100-Day goal was to connect 150 young people experiencing homelessness to safe and stable housing. During the 100 days the team also enabled 93 unaccompanied youth to exit homelessness and to move into safe and stable housing.

One of the most exciting things that emerged from the Marion County's 100-day journey was that the team worked together to raise $400,000 in funding for Salem’s first Homeless Youth Shelter. This was something the community had been talking about for 7 years...and they accomplished it in 80 days! The team credits a young person with lived experience with this success - the teams provided her with the data she needed, but it was her story and the stories that she told that won over the funders, including state legislators!  

These achievements were showcased in creative ways to help solidify and amplify the lessons that the team learned.  As one participant commented , “we are really learning that it’s not just about putting someone in a house but it is also about understanding how we can all work together to quickly identify solutions and anticipate things in a very coordinated way.” To see more of the communities accomplishments, view their dashboards here.

In order to sustain the progress of these rather intense and action-packed 100-Day Challenges, the teams reflected on some of the tough questions that emerged during the 100 days. These included the question of racial equity and attitude towards LGBTQ youth.  Each participant left with action commitments to move the conversation further on these issues in their respective communities. Participants also developed concrete plans and action recommendations to their leaders to lock in the gains they made and to embed the shifts in process, behaviors, and systems they experimented with during the 100 days.