In Travis County, 49% of homeless individuals seeking housing assistance report a history in foster care, highlighting an urgent need to develop a deeper understanding of youth needs and experiences, identify opportunities for programmatic and policy changes, and increase coordination between homelessness response, child welfare, and other systems.
In this PSI, the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing partnered with ECHO, the lead agency in the Austin/Travis County Homelessness Response System, and Change 1, an Austin-based organization that provides support for youth aging out of foster care, to conduct a community-participatory research study aimed at exploring access to services, systems collaboration, and opportunities for effective prevention and intervention.
