February 4, 2025, The Youth Homelessness Prevention Subcommittee

The Youth Homelessness Prevention Subcommittee

February 4, 2025

2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

Agenda:

  1. Call to Order
  2. Roll Call of Appointees - require a quorum of 9 for voting purposes
  3. Introductions of remaining attendees
  4. Approval of minutes from October and December (required motion, second, and vote to approve)
  5. Renewed Focus of Yearly Mandated Trainings
  6. Review of Subcommittee Legislative Goals and Updates
  7. Youth Homelessness Systems Improvement Grant
    1. Update
    2. Roll of Subcommittee
  8. Public Comments
  9. Adjourn

Meeting Attendance:

This meeting was virtual but a physical space was provided for the public to attend in person; the physical location was 555 W Monroe, Chicago, IL 60661, in the Peoria room on the 4th floor, scheduled from 2:00 to 3:30.

Meeting Minutes:

Youth Homelessness Prevention Subcommittee Minutes (approved 4/1/25 by committee vote):

I. Call to Order

II. Roll Call

a. Not present: Elizabeth Whitehorn (HFS), Sameer Vohra (DPH), Dulce Quintero (DHS), Latoya Hughes (DOC), Mary Milano (DGAC), Robert Vickery (DJJ), Heidi Mueller (DCFS), Isabella Hurtado (Governor's Office), Nicholas Johnson (Youth Representative), Kalynn Lane (Youth Representative), K'iani Macklin (Youth Representative), Leonard Johnson (National Youth Advocate Program), Nya Kelly (Chicago Coalition for the Homeless)

b. Present: Sandy Godinez (The Harbour), Ann Baker (Midwest Youth Services), Valerie Tawrel (360 Youth Services), Tedd Peso (The Night Ministry)

c. Did not meet quorum, not able to vote on any agenda items

III. Introductions of other attendees: Latonya Butts (OPEH), Amy Dworsky (Chapin Hall), Colleen Mahoney OPEH), Barbara Hobrock (Boards and Commissions), Ashley Bae (DMH), Billy Lau (OPEH), Anna Spreitzer (OPEH), Tyrie Fluker (DJJ)

IV. Approval of minutes - we do not have a quorum so we are not able to approve the minutes. We will wait on that until next meeting.

V. Focus on annual mandatory trainings - yearly requirement. Thank you everyone for attempting to take trainings last year. We are hopeful that this year the process will be easier. We really appreciate those getting them done in a timely manner.

VI. Subcommittee Goals

a. Created to review discharge planning, service plans, and discharge procedures for youth leaving the custody and guardianship of DCFS, the Department of Justice, the Department of Human Services Division of Mental Health, and the Department of Corrections. The goal is to collect data on the housing stability of youth for one year after they're released from these systems of care.

b. Based on the data collected, create a plan to improve discharge policies and procedures to ensure housing stability for youth who leave state4 systems of care, and then provide recommendations on community plans for sustainable housing, create education and employment plans for homeless youth, and create strategic collaborations between the systems of care with respect o youth leaving state systems of care.

c. This is the kind of work that is going to start driving the data that we will start getting from the Youth Homelessness Systems Improvement grant. Amy has an update about the YHSI grant and the role of this subcommittee.

VII. Youth Homelessness Systems Improvement Grant update

a. YHSI Illinois Prevention Pilot - a strategic partnership involving OPEH, the DHS Homeless Youth Bureau, DCFS, DJJ, and young people with lived experience

b. It has two main components.

i. One involves a data infrastructure needed to measure homelessness among young people leaving systems of care and then use the results of what is learned to improve discharge planning practices.

ii. Two involves a youth development component, and this is to promote youth development and increase young people's voice in state government.

c. The data component is being led by the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Public Health and the Youth development component is being led by The Night Ministry.

d. All of this will be overseen by a steering committee and that's where you all come in because we are hoping that members of this subcommittee will serve on the steering committee.

e. The data infrastructure component involves linking data from DCFS, DJJ, and DHS to data from Continuums of Care across the State; and then using those results to better understand which young people leaving systems of care are experiencing homelessness. The results from that data analysis will be co-interpreted with young people. It will be presented to the steering committee and then it will be used to improve discharge planning and post discharge supports for young people exiting systems of care.

f. The Youth Development component has two pieces to it.

i. We are going to identify youth leaders from across the state. Those young people will form a statewide youth advisory group.

ii. Those members of the youth advisory group wil then be given an opportunity to participate in internships at DCFS and OPEH and those internships will be modeled after a similar program that DJJ uses.

g. That is the progress to date. We've been working on developing our work plan and we are still just fleshing out some details and dates. We're working on establishing data sharing agreements between DCFS, DJJ, DHS, the COCs; all with UIC so that the data can be shared and then linked. Also developing plans for the internship program and the Youth Advisory Group.

h. That is our update on YHSI, are there any questions?

i. Do we have any additional CoCs that are participating in the data survey or interest from additional CoCs?

  1. We don't have any additional ones other than the ones we had already identified at the end of December.
  2. We are still in the process of executing the contracts between DHS and our subgrantees. It's rare for DHS to receive a grant so we've had to do some work to understand when the contract starts vs when the subgrantee contract starts. We've made some progress and OPEH is working on outreach to other CoCs as well to have some wider statewide coverage.

VIII. Public Comment

a. Is there any public comment? No.

b. Some discussion was had regarding current Federal funding and any providers affected.

IX. Motion to adjourn

a. Adjournment

Meeting Recording:

Recording