Rising Up

A Public/Private Partnership to Reduce Youth Homelessness by 50% by 2023

THE PROBLEM

No young person should find themselves without a safe and stable place to call home. Yet across the country, one in ten people aged 12 to 25 will experience homelessness in a given year. San Francisco has approximately 1,200 Transition Aged Youth (18-24) experiencing homelessness. This number is down over 20% since 2015, but there is more to do.

THE SOLUTION: RISING UP

To super charge our efforts, Mayor London Breed launched Rising Up; a public-private partnership that includes six City departments, five non-profit organizations, a number of local companies, and a group of philanthropic supporters. Larkin Street Youth Services is the anchor institution and fiscal sponsor and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is the lead government agency.

THE GOALS

The goal of Rising Up is to achieve a 50% reduction for homeless youth ages 18-24 by 2023. We will do this by:

• Providing Rapid Rehousing services to at least 500 Transition Aged Youth in the next 3 years.
• Helping 450 TAY with Problem Solving Services to help them get housed without long term financial support.

The timeline for the program is July 2019 – December 2022. Rising Up has already launched and will house over 140 youth by June 2020.

FUNDRAISING

• The program will cost $35,000,000 in public and private funds. Thus far, Mayor Breed has invested $10M of public funding and we have raised approximately $7M in private funding. This leaves us with $18M left to raise from the private sector.
• We are grateful to our philanthropic partners thus far, which include Airbnb, AT&T, Twilio, Twitter, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Tipping Point Community, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Brenda Jewett, Maryam and Oran Muduroglu, and JaMel and Tom Perkins.

THE SERVICES

Problem Solving

• Problem Solving is the first step for any young person experiencing homelessness. The goal is to determine if a one-time or short-term solution can quickly prevent or resolve a young person’s homelessness without the need for housing through the homelessness response system.

Rapid Rehousing

• Problem Solving services may not be enough for all young people. Rapid Rehousing, a national best practice model for addressing homelessness, will be significantly expanded to meet the need.
• Rapid Rehousing services include: support finding a home in the private market, move-in assistance (security deposit, furniture, etc.), and a monthly rent subsidy for up to three years. During this time the participants will also receive case management services, support finding and keeping a job, support in achieving their educational goals, and access to health services. Participants will work with their case manager to set their rent subsidy and contribution level every three months. They are eligible for an incentive if they do not use all of their subsidy.

Employment, Education, and Health Services

• Comprehensive education and employment services will be provided to equip young people to persist in post-secondary education and sustain career-track, living-wage employment.
• The health program will support youth in making long-term investments in their physical and emotional well-being.

THE PARTNERS

As a broad-based city-wide effort, there are a number of partners working together to ensure the success of Rising Up:

Public Partners

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) is taking the lead of the following public partners involved in Rising Up: San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Families, San Francisco Department of Public Health, San Francisco Unified School District, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Office of Financial Empowerment, San Francisco Human Services Agency, Department of Adult Probation, Department of Juvenile Probation.

Community Based Organizations

Larkin Street Youth Services will be the fiscal agent for the private funds raised through Rising Up.  Additional partner community-based organizations include At the Crossroads, Brilliant Corners, First Place for Youth, Five Keys Schools and Programs, 3rd Street Youth Center and Clinic.

COORDINATED ENTRY FOR YOUTH

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing has launched Coordinated Entry for Youth and its community Access Points. Access Points are localized community gateways into San Francisco’s Homelessness Response System, which is the overall system of programs and housing opportunities for youth ages 18-24 experiencing homelessness.

The nonprofit service providers for Coordinated Entry for Youth is operated by two leads, Larkin Street Youth Services and Huckleberry Youth, and in partnership with Homeless Youth Alliance, LYRIC, The SF LGBT Center, 3rd Street Youth Center and Clinic. Access Points are designed to provide access, determine eligibility, conduct problem solving and assessments, and perform housing referrals for San Francisco youth experiencing homelessness.

Please follow this link for more information about Coordinated Entry, including a list of service providers.

Access Points

The Grand Challenge

WHY IS RISING UP IMPORTANT?

Today in San Francisco we have only 500 beds for the close to 1,200 young people who are homeless in our City. Statistics have shown that by increasing our investment, we can decrease the number of homeless youth on the streets.  In 2015 the City was investing 5% of the budget in youth homelessness. That investment increased to 8% by 2017. The result was a decrease of homeless youth on the streets in the annual Point in Time count from 1,569 in 2015 to 1,147 in the 2019 Point in Time count.  Both Rising Up and the Grand Challenge are strategies which will maximize immediate investments and help us reach our goal of reducing homelessness for all young people in San Francisco by 50% by 2023.

For questions or to learn more about the Rising Up initiative, contact Kathie Lowry, Rising Up Fundraising Campaign Manager at Kathie.l.lowry@gmail.com