The link to the Notice of Funding Availability can be found here.

Many folks may have missed this news because this was announced on Inauguration Day, a very busy day for our Country. This funding announcement includes the competitive portion of both FY 2020 and 2021 Appropriations Acts.  In each of those years, at the request of foster youth and homeless youth, Congress allotted $25 million for the Family Unification Program funding. Appropriators then split that funding into three pots:

1. $5 million for vouchers distributed on a competitive basis to prevent separation or accelerate reunification for child welfare-involved families.

2. $10 million for three year vouchers for at-risk foster youth to be distributed on a “non-competitive” basis to PHAs capable of administering Housing Choice Vouchers in increments as small as one at a time.

3. $10 million for three year vouchers for at-risk foster youth to be distributed on a “competitive” basis to PHAs capable of administering Housing Choice Vouchers in process similar to how PHAs applied for FUP vouchers traditionally.

HUD issued the $5 million for family vouchers from FY 2020 funding in early 2020. HUD is due to release the $5 million from the FY 2021 bill in the spring. These Notices will be offered in the traditional, competitive award process.

On October 6, 2020, HUD issued PIH Notice 2020-28 to inform PHAs that $10 million in non-competitive funding is available for all PHAs capable of administering Housing Choice Vouchers to request “on demand” vouchers in increments as small as one to serve homeless or at risk foster youth and recent alumni of care. PIH Notice 2020-28 supersedes the first iteration of FYI which drew vouchers from the Tenant Protection Account and ended the FUP/non-FUP bifurcation which prohibited PHAs with a history of FUP from applying for FYI. This Notice increases the number of FYI vouchers a PHA can request annually to 50 and tweaks youth eligibility slightly to remove an income for working youth. To read more about that notice, click here. HUD plans to issue the remaining $10 million of non-competitive FYI funding in the spring.

For this current, competitive Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), which HUD appropriately refers to as “FYI Competitive,” HUD chose to combine the FY 2020 and FY 2021 funding for a total of $20 million. Those PHAs familiar with FUP NOFAs from past years will recognize that this process is nearly indistinguishable from the 2019 FUP NOFA and as such, those who have applied for this funding in the past will be in the best position to respond successfully. Communities with many youth aging out each year will be pleased to learn that this NOFA raises the maximum number of vouchers to 75 for large PHAs.

Obviously, HUD hopes that communities will attempt to accurately forecast the number of youth who will immediately utilize these vouchers - and that PCWAs and other community partners are doing everything they can to identify and expand the pool of landlords in their community willing to rent to FYI youth. PHAs should not request more vouchers than they will need as additional vouchers in smaller amounts can always be requested through HUD’s non-competitive FYI funding.

For more questions, please visit HUD’s FYI information page which you can access here.  

Congress Passes the Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities Act in the Omnibus Spending Bill

It is downright poetic that on the darkest, coldest day of a very difficult year, the Winter Solstice, Congress passed the Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities Act #FSHO - bringing light and hope to youth who are growing too old for foster care and have no family to whom they can safely return home. Written and spearheaded by foster youth and alumni from ACTION Ohio in partnership with NCHCW, #FSHO eliminates #homelessness (and the fear of being homeless) for all older youth in care. Youth who are interested in signing a lease for their own apartment and partnering with a local Public Housing Agency for three years to receive #FYI #FUP assistance in paying their rent. Perhaps more importantly, all youth who participate will be able to enroll in HUD's Family Self-Sufficiency Program #FSSS) which rewards tenants for increasing their income. And by volunteering to enroll in FSS, youth will extend their voucher from three years to FIVE. It would be impossible to overstate the amount of work and heart that all of the youth & alumni, HUD staff put into designing this legislation and the unwavering leadership exhibited by Jamole Callahan to usher in wholesale child welfare reform.

Read the final enacted version of the Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities Act (FSHO) HERE.

Read our Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities Act Fact Sheet HERE.

The Foster Youth to Independence Initiative is the gift from HUD and Foster Youth that keeps on giving!

youth have ended homelessness for their foster care brothers and sisters with FYI

The role of PHAs in youth success (November 12, 2020)

NCHCW partnered with the Public Housing Authority Directors Association (PHADA), ACTION Ohio and the Juvenile Law Center to conduct the At Home with FYI: The role of public housing authorities in youth success webinar on November 12.   

Attendees heard directly from the formidable FYI Team in Lorain, OH including FYI Ambassador Isabella Bradford, Independent Living Supervisor Cathleen Fairbanks, and Debbie Carter of the Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority.  We were honored to have HUD DAS Danielle Bastarache remind us of the heroic advocacy of the foster youth, like foster care alumna, Cloé Cooper, who designed FYI for their brothers and sisters in care and emphasize HUD’s commitment to the future of the program.  HUD’s PIH Team, Ryan Jones and Michelle Daniels, gave a thorough and clear overview of the technical aspects of applying for and administering vouchers. 

We are so grateful to Seth Embry of PHADA and Jenny Pokempner of the JLC for their partnership and commitment to assuring that all young adults have what they need to move towards independence and find success in apartments of their own.    

The webinar provided housing professionals with the tools and information necessary to add the Foster Youth to Independence “FYI” Initiative to the range of services intended to ease the transition to adulthood for America’s older foster youth.   

Tools from the webinar are linked below:

o   Link to HUD’s FYI Page (link)  

o   A copy of the PowerPoint presentation (link)  

o   A recording of the webinar (link)  

o   HUD’s October 6, 2020 FYI Notice (link) 

o   NCHCW FYI Frequently Asked Questions (link) 

o   Template for a letter of intent (which can serve as a referral as well) (link) 

o   Referral Form courtesy of Illinois DCF (link)

o   Client Log (Excel document) courtesy of Illinois DCF (link) 

o   HUD’s HCV Special Purpose Voucher Dashboard (link) 

o   HUD’s PHA Estimated Service Area Mapping tool (link)

FYI PHA sample email to HUD requesting vouchers (link)

Five Simple Steps to Getting Started with FYI

Since 2013, the FSHO Coalition, led by ACTION Ohio, has worked in partnership with the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, elected officials including foster youth champions, Reps. Turner and Bass, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to study how to knit existing federal programs together to eliminate the gaps through which foster youth fall into homelessness.

The FSHO Coalition discovered that the best way to eliminate gaps is to synchronize existing programs such as HUD’s Family Unification Program (FUP), with the predictable nature of emancipation (the date a young person leaves state custody). HUD leadership agreed and created the Foster Youth to Independence Program to do exactly that.

First, FYI extends HUD’s Family Unification Program to all non-FUP PHAs, thus extending FUP to youth across the US - an extraordinary shift in American social policy.

FSHO allows all local Public Housing Authorities to provide an “on demand” FUP voucher that is timed with a young person’s emancipation from foster care.  In this way, existing federal resources, can be knitted together and used as a platform for economic success.  

Currently FYI is available all PHAs capable of administering Section 8 vouchers. If your PHA currently administers FUP, the leas up rate must be at least 90%. To find your PHAs FUP lease up rate, visit HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher Dashboard here. Prior to doing any of this we recommend that PCWAs look at their own caseloads to determine and forecast the number of youth that would be eligible and in need of an FYI voucher PRIOR to reaching out to your PHA.

Here are the steps you can follow to engage your PHA :

1. Complete a (draft letter) form a PCWA to the PHA to schedule a meeting about FYI implementation. Print out a copy of HUD’s FYI notice for yourselves and for the PHA. Click here to view the most recent FYI Notice (published October 6, 2020). This letter explains that each agency will have to agree to certain responsibilities in order to take advantage of FYI. This is simply a tool to insure that DSS properly supports youth and it is a “cut and paste” from Chafee so funding these services should not be a problem.

2. Arrange a meeting (we always say take your PHA to lunch) between the agency directors.

3. Complete an MOU or a letter of agreement. Click here for a sample letter of agreement.

4. Once the letter is signed, PHA notifies HUD via email that they would like to implement FYI. This email serves as an application.

5. Wait for notification from HUD that they are approved. HUD is aiming to respond to applications within no more 60 days of receiving the request for a tenant protection/FYI voucher for a youth!

FAQs

What is the Family Unification Program?
HUD’s Family Unification Program (FUP) is the only national housing program aimed at preventing family separation due to homelessness and easing the transition to adulthood for aging-out youth.  HUD provides Housing Choice Vouchers (“Section 8”) to local public housing authorities (PHAs) who apply to administer the program.  These PHAs are then required to work in partnership with the local public child welfare agency to identify youth and families to refer to the program.  FUP has existed since 1990 for families and youth were added as an eligible population in 2000. Unlike families, young people participating in FUP receive vouchers that are time-limited to three years.

The impact of this relatively small program is extraordinary.  Each year nearly 60,000 children live in safe, affordable housing and avoid out-of-home placement and homelessness due to FUP.  Since youth were added in the year 2000, more than 5,000 young people have received housing vouchers and their own, independent apartment upon leaving foster care.  

 How does FYI change FUP for youth?  
Currently, FUP vouchers for youth come from an unpredictable pool of funding and are only administered by certain PHAs.  FSHO allows all PHAs to administer FUP.  FSHO also changes the funding source for youth FUP vouchers from the separate FUP line item, to a flexible but little-known account at HUD called the Tenant Protection Fund (link to our overview).  Vouchers from this fund can be issued “on demand” at the discretion of the HUD Secretary.  Therefore, FUP vouchers for youth can now be requested and received, “on demand” by local PHAs as those youth are identified by the local public child welfare agency (PCWA).  

Who is eligible?
FYI changes FUP eligibility slightly for youth.  Vouchers distribute after October 2020 can only be provided to youth who are planning to age out or have already aged out through a formal transition planning process as defined in

For youth, the PCWA will certify that the youth is at least 18 years old and not more than 24 years old (has not reached his/her 25th birthday), that he/she left foster or older or will leave foster care within 90 days, in accordance with a transition plan, and is homeless or at risk of homelessness after the age of 16. Keep in mind that a housing choice voucher requires that an individual sign a legal document called a lease with a private landlord.  Thus, the FSHO Coalition recommends and research by the University of Denver indicates that young people who are participating in extended foster care or Chafee Independent Living Services, are close to reaching their 21st birthday, and who participate in supervised independent living placements are the best candidates for referral.

How does a child welfare agency make a referral?
First, all public child welfare agencies (PCWAs) should establish a point of contact at their local PHA and begin to develop a relationship with their peer at that organization.

Next, PCWAs use a variety of independent living funding sources to prepare young people who are likely to reach adulthood in state care.  As young people move along this continuum of services, PCWA staff should monitor if a young person is at risk of homelessness and interested in the stability of renting their own apartment.  If it is the case that a young person will not be able to afford to rent an apartment without a government subsidy then, the PCWA staff will notify their peer at the local PHA about three to six months prior to emancipation (in most states this is just before age 21) that the young person is eligible for and interested in a FUP voucher. 

PCWAs should also begin to forecast and predict how many young people will need vouchers within their caseload so that they can request vouchers in batches from their local PHA.

How many young people will this program serve annually?
The National Youth in Transition Database report indicates that 20% of 19-year-old alumni (1,576) and 28% of 21-year-old alumni (1,991) experience homelessness.  Given these figures, the FSHO Coalition estimates that approximately 2,000 youth people who are leaving foster care could benefit from FSHO/FUP for youth.

It is certainly the case that many young people have been failed by the system and as such, these young people are currently homeless.  PCWAs must begin to work with their local homeless service providers and identify young people who can be brought back into the fold of the public child welfare system and provided with appropriate services to prepare for access to independent apartments through FYI.  The FSHO Coalition anticipates that fewer young people will turn to the streets due to the predictability and stability that FYI will create for older youth in care.

To join the FSHO Coalition or for more information on how to access FYI for youth and how to use this program as a platform for economic success and self-sufficiency visit the www.fosterACTIONOhio.org and www.nchcw.org

Past FYI webinars