Statement from the National Network for Youth on HUD’s FY 2026 Funding Notices Impacting Youth

The National Network for Youth (NN4Y) is deeply concerned by several provisions included in two recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs):

• Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Continuum of Care Competition and Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Grants
• Youth Homelessness NOFO for FY2024 and FY2025

At their core, these funding criteria reflect a philosophy that some young people must prove they are worthy of housing, services, and support. NN4Y rejects that premise.

Every young person has inherent dignity and worth. Every young person deserves to be treated with respect, compassion, and humanity. Safe housing is not something that should be earned through compliance, treatment, or adherence to a particular political ideology. It is a basic human need and the foundation from which young people can pursue education, employment, healing, stability, and their aspirations for the future.

Young people experiencing homelessness are not problems to be managed. They are young people with extraordinary resilience who deserve opportunities—not punishment, exclusion, or additional barriers.

Unfortunately, several provisions in these NOFOs move our nation in the wrong direction.

NN4Y strongly opposes provisions that reward communities for demonstrating cooperation with efforts to criminalize homelessness, disperse encampments, expand involuntary commitment, or otherwise avoid interfering with enforcement activities. The NOFOs also require post-award compliance with Executive Orders that prioritize enforcement over housing.

Many young people experience homelessness after also experiencing abuse, neglect, family conflict, aging out of foster care, involvement with the juvenile or adult legal systems, or economic hardship. Responding to these circumstances with policing, displacement, or forced treatment does not address the causes of homelessness nor does it help young people exit homelessness. Instead, it punishes young people for circumstances beyond their control and communicates to them that they are unwelcome and undeserving.

Federal housing resources should be used to help communities create pathways to safety and stability, not incentivize policies that further marginalize young people who are already struggling to survive. Young people experiencing homelessness deserve care, not criminalization.

The NOFO also discourages organizations that have embraced harm reduction approaches by rewarding applicants that reject these practices and allowing HUD to consider an organization’s prior work in this area when evaluating funding applications.

Harm reduction is rooted in a simple principle: every person’s life has value.

Young people should not have to achieve perfection before they are treated with compassion. They deserve to be met where they are, treated with dignity, and offered evidence-based support that recognizes both their strengths and the challenges they face. Federal funding should encourage approaches that keep young people connected to caring adults, proper health and mental health care, and stable housing. Penalizing organizations for extending compassion through harm reduction strategies is a massive step backwards from what research has shown to be effective in reducing substance use, mental health challenges, suicide, and chronic instability.

NN4Y is equally concerned by provisions that allow applicants to be evaluated based on prior diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Organizations should not be penalized for striving to ensure that all young people are welcomed and treated fairly within their programs and services. This retroactive review is especially concerning considering providers have for years been required to implement robust DEI-based services.

Youth homelessness does not affect all young people equally. Historic and ongoing discrimination means that Black youth, Native youth, LGBTQ+ youth, young parents, and young people with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness.

Acknowledging these disparities is not political. Data from providers in rural, urban, suburban, and Tribal communities show them clearly, and the numbers cannot be dismissed. This is why practices that recognize the unique experiences of diverse groups of young people and help them feel like they belong are so critical to helping a young person exit homelessness and achieve long-term stability.

NN4Y is further concerned about post-award requirements requiring recipients to adopt a binary definition of sex and gender.

Transgender and nonbinary young people experience homelessness at disproportionately higher rates than their cisgender peers, often because of family rejection, discrimination, or experiences of violence. Policies that deny or erase a young person’s identity undermine their dignity and create additional barriers to safety and housing. Federal housing programs must create environments where every young person feels safe, respected, and affirmed, or else the programs will be rendered completely ineffective.