DCAYA’s Budget Updates Part II: Expanded Learning & Youth Homelessness

The final vote by the Council occurred yesterday, and the District’s FY17 budget now goes to Mayor Bowser. Today we continue to reflect on the work of our members and partners throughout this year’s advocacy season, and provide an update on successes for youth, families and children within the FY17 budget. Last week’s blog focused on Youth Workforce Development and Disconnected Youth, and we continue this week with a look at Expanded Learning and Youth Homelessness.

Expanded Learning

A Path Forward for Funding Afterschool and Summer Learning

After the mayor proposed $4.9 million to the DC Trust for community-based afterschool and summer programming in FY17, our initial ask was to double that investment in order to serve up to four times as many children and youth in need of quality expanded learning opportunities. While we were optimistic about the strength of the proposed amount compared to recent years, it was not enough to reverse a downward trend for out-of-school time programming we have seen each year in the District since 2010.

While we will continue to advocate for scaled-up, multi-year funding beginning in FY18, the advocacy priority for FY17 quickly shifted with the announced dissolution of the DC Trust on April 26. Since then, DCAYA and our community-based partners have worked hard to preserve the $4.9 million intended for expanded learning programs. Our coalition has held more than a dozen meetings with members of DC Council and their staff, as well as the Deputy Mayors for Education and Health and Human Services, to build support among policy makers for an established, nonprofit intermediary with youth development expertise to administer out-of-school time (OST) funding in FY17. We continue to be an active partner in this effort, as Deputy Mayor Brenda Donald presents this recommendation to Mayor Bowser.

We’d like to thank the Deputy Mayors and members of Council, as well as all of our expanded learning partners (simply too many to list here) who stepped up to provide resources and insight in the wake of the Trust’s collapse. Most especially, we’re grateful to those members who met with policy makers and offered public testimony to advocate for the preservation of out-of-school time funding. We'd like to give a special shout out of thanks to Fair Chance and Gretchen Van der Veer for helping coordinate our members and Fair Chance partners to do a final round of walk arounds with DC Council on the importance of out of school time programming.

Sustaining 21st Century Community Learning Centers

Earlier this year, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) announced that due to internal efforts to streamline grant making processes and decreased federal funds, there would be no new competition for the federal 21st Century Community Learning Center (CLC) grant program in the 2016-2017 school year. This action immediately affected three community-based OST providers who all stood to lose approximately $995,413 in the coming school year. The disruption of these services, which have all demonstrated quality programming and remarkable outcomes for students, would have caused significant ramifications next year for up to 1,000 at-risk students and undermined years of investments.

Recognizing that families, youth and children deserve more than a haphazard and inconsistent delivery of these key critical services, DCAYA and these three partners launched a targeted advocacy effort to find support and funding. These efforts paid off with Council identifying $800,000 to sustain 21st Century CLC’s in FY17. We’d like to thank these organizations and their families for rallying to support the students, as well as Superintendent Hanseul Kang and everyone at OSSE for their support in working toward a solution, and Councilmembers David Grosso, Brianne Nadeau and Charles Allen for their outspoken support for sustaining this important and life-changing funding stream.

Youth Homelessness

Building Capacity for a Youth-Friendly System

This year, DCAYA advocated to an additional investment of $800,000 to create more transitional housing and independent living options for youth experiencing homelessness. While the mayor’s proposed budget included significantly more funding for crisis support and prevention and diversion services, which we had advocated for and certainly applaud, more funding for meaningful housing interventions will be needed in future years if we are to meet the intent of the 2014 End Youth Homelessness Amendment Act and make homelessness among unaccompanied minors and transition-aged youth rare, brief and non-recurring by 2020.

DCAYA continues to work in a leadership role with the Interagency Council of Homelessness (ICH) and the ICH Youth Subcommittee, and we are optimistic that with the Fall release of the ICH’s Strategic Plan to End Youth Homelessness, we and our partners will be positioned to make an even stronger ask next budget season. We’d like to thank ICH Executive Director Kristy Greenwalt, DHS Director Laura Zeilinger, and DHS Deputy Administrator for Youth Services Hilary Cairns for their continued leadership and support for scaled-up funding, as well as Kimberly Henderson with Child and Family Services Agency, for her role co-chairing the Youth Subcommittee. We are grateful to our members and partners from Sasha Bruce, Casa Ruby, the Latin American Youth Center, Wanda Alston, Covenant House and the DC Center for the LGBT Community for their leadership, advocacy partnerships and public testimonies.

Dignified Housing for Homeless Children & Families

In February, the mayor made good on her promise to voters to deliver a plan to close D.C. General and move homeless families into safe and dignified housing throughout the District, and the plan was met both with intense support and praise, and resistance and criticism. The months that followed saw some of this teased out as policy makers, advocates, and members of the community worked toward a middle ground.  We are pleased that Council has since passed a revised plan that calls for the use of government-owned properties in Wards 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and the purchase (instead of leasing) of the sites in Wards 1 and 4. These revisions effectively respond to resident concerns about cost while maintaining the overall intent of the plan. We believe that the housing these families will receive, along with improved access to local amenities and on-site case management services, will have life-changing results for their children well worth this effort and its capital expenditures.

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DCAYA Testifies about Youth Homelessness

This week’s blog post is an excerpt from testimony given by Maggie Riden, the Executive Director of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, at the Department of Human Services performance oversight hearing on March 12, 2015. The following entry was edited for length. 

Good morning Chairwoman Alexander, fellow Councilmembers, and committee staff. My name is Maggie Riden and I am the Executive Director of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, a coalition of over 130 youth-serving organizations in the District.  Today, I would like to welcome the new Director of the Department of Human Services and identify the key areas in which DHS can move forward.

It is indeed a “fresh start” for DHS.  We are committed to working with Director Zeilinger to prevent homelessness, improve homeless services, and find stable housing solutions in the District.  In order for this collaborative effort to work, transparency and communication are critical to building a system which properly serves homeless youth.  

First and foremost, DCAYA is concerned by the unclear and seeming slow implementation pace of the Homeless Youth Reform Act of 2013 and the End Youth Homelessness Act of 2014. Having a clearer timeline and transparent funding information is essential for collaborative planning of youth-specific services. This point is especially poignant, because as we speak, there are youth on waiting lists for emergency and transitional beds. We urge DHS to clarify the internal status of the funding and layout next steps to ensure proper implementation.

There is also a need for greater transparency and communication among the services offered to youth-headed families.  This is clearly illustrated in the updated status on the implementation of the Rudd report recommendations. For example:

Rudd report:

“Recommendation 6.1:  Increase the number of on-site case managers to identify and engage those families who are difficult to serve.”

DHS Answer:

“DHS and TCP provide case management services to all families in shelter.  In addition, the Bowser administration recently announced the creation and funding of housing navigators who will be responsible for specifically assisting families with their housing needs, allowing case managers to focus on other issues.”  

This DHS answer does not present clear information on whether additional case managers were hired, how many case managers were hired, if the case managers are full or part-time employees, or the credentials of the case managers.  DHS must communicate transparent information on the status of its implementation of the Rudd recommendations, including basic data on implemented changes, written protocols, training materials, and explanation of mechanisms.  Relisha was not the only young person taken from DC General - DHS must clearly articulate the steps being taken to ensure such tragedies do not repeat themselves.  

Meanwhile, there are pockets of great work happening in our community around youth homelessness.  The Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) is helping agencies and community-service providers in developing and implementing the Coordinated Entry for youth.  DHS is playing a role in this process, and the role must continue to grow, as the issue falls squarely within DHS’s mandate.  

The Coordinated Entry system is identifying the knots, gaps, and workarounds present in the current system of youth services.  It is time for DHS and its partners to untangle the systemic workarounds covering up the problem of youth homelessness.  It is time for DHS and its partners to build a system which connects youth to best-fit services and programs.  With the new funding provided by the youth homelessness legislation, DHS and its partners have the resources to meet the needs of homeless youth with new, transparent, and well-communicated policies and programs.  

DHS has an incredibly difficult job in the District, where inequality is rapidly growing and intergenerational poverty is deeply-rooted. We do not ask for quick solutions, but we do demand greater transparency and communication.  It is the only way that we, as a community, will fix the horrible reality of vast homelessness in the District.