Functional zero means that a community has functionally ended homelessness. We know that there will always be young people in crisis. Reaching functional zero means “yes to yes”: A Washington state where every young person can access the services they need and want quickly, without having to leaving their home community - and seeing them stably housed as a result.
We believe that communities cannot achieve an end to youth homelessness without also ending disproportionality in their systems. This is why we include components around ending disproportionality for young people who are overrepresented in homelessness data.
Over the next period we will be testing this definition of ending youth and young adult homelessness with Anchor Communities. We know that disproportionality for young people of color and LGBTQ+ young people within the homelessness system is a symptom of larger, systemic issues. Testing these equity measures will mean working with young people to uncover how racism and other inequities are manifesting in homeless systems and developing data-driven solutions.
This work during the “reducing phase” will ensure that communities are:
developing the data infrastructure to measure racial and LGBTQ+ equity
equipped to have community conversations around systemic racism and injustice
developing solutions and tests of change with young people with lived experience that get to the root causes of disproportionality
FUNCTIONAL ZERO MEASURES
Quantitative measures:
A community has the capacity to permanently house all youth and young adults experiencing homelessness at any given time.
Headline Measure: Active Number <= Permanently Housed Number
The number of youth and young adults actively experiencing homelessness is less than or equal to the number of youth and young adults being permanently housed in a given month.
Equity check: POC and LGBTQ+ young people have the same or higher probability of being housed than others (testing aggregation at the 6 month level)
Young people experiencing unsheltered homelessness: Testing 24-48 hour period between identification to shelter.
2. Young people are staying stably housed
Of all exits to permanent housing in the past 12 months, no more than 5% result in a return to the homelessness system in 12 months
Equity check: POC and LGBTQ+ young people are returning to homelessness from housing at an equal or lesser rate than others
3. Young people are being housed quickly
Young people experiencing homelessness are housed within a community wide average of 30 days
Equity Check: POC and LGBTQ+ young people spend equal or less time experiencing homelessness than others
Other measures:
4. Quality data:
Meets 15% 3 month data reliability threshold
Meets ACI Demographic data standard (90% knowns for sexual orientation, gender and race/ethnicity data)
5. Meets YYA Engagement Gold Standard