Youth-Centered Service

As a youth-centered service, the HF4Y approach combines the principles of Housing First with an understanding of the needs of adolescents and young adults from a healthy youth development perspective. This youth-centered focus is important because:

• Youth face additional barriers to housing due to age discrimination, eligibility criteria for certain assistance programs, legal barriers to rental housing. 
• Youth can fall between the child and adult serving systems. Transition age youth may be too old to access children’s services but too young for the adult system.
• Youth may be disadvantaged by systems that prioritize need by length of time in homelessness (chronicity) or severity of their situation (acuity).

In practical terms, youth-centered service means:

• Establishing trust and treating young people with respect and dignity.
• Supporting young people to identify and set goals, develop creative solutions to their problems and help them follow through.
• Referring young people to services of their choice and helping them to navigate those services.
• Advocating and modeling self-advocacy for young people in a service system environment.
• Promoting ethical behaviour and anti-discriminatory practice that treats participants, family, and staff with dignity and respect.