February 24, 2026
Good morning Councilmember Frumin and members of the Committee on Human Services. My name is Jorge Membreño and I am the Director of Youth Advocacy at DC Action. As you know, DC Action convenes the Youth Economic Justice Coalition, which includes youth homelessness and mental health providers. My testimony today will be based on my expertise as a practicing mental health clinician and as someone who has directly worked in or for youth housing programs.
Recently, the Department of Human Services (DHS) implemented a system-wide policy change that limits a young person’s access to youth transitional housing to a maximum of 24 months. While transitional housing programs have historically operated with a 24-month limit per specific program, the critical difference under this new policy is that the 24 months is now cumulative across the entire youth system. Under the previous approach, if a young person completed a program and later re-experienced homelessness, they could re-enter the youth system for additional support. Now, once a young person has used the full 24 months, regardless of how or when those months were used, or at what age they used those services initially, they are permanently ineligible to return to youth transitional housing.
For example, a young person who exits a program successfully at age 19 after 20 months would technically have four months of eligibility remaining. However, if that young person later loses their job and faces eviction, they would only be eligible for a youth transitional housing program for just 4 months. And, in my experience, youth require at least 12 months to stabilize after any major trauma, setback, or hardship that lead them to experience homelessness. So, for this 19-year old who is re-experiencing homelessness, they may be able to receive support for 4 months but then they would be forced into the adult homelessness system. We are essentially creating a pipeline into the adult homelessness system.
This shift fails to recognize the developmental realities of young adulthood, especially of Black and brown youth in DC. Youth ages 18 to 24 often experience instability in employment, income, and housing as they transition to independence due to a number of factors. Many work low-wage or part-time jobs with little security, lack savings or family supports, and are navigating adult responsibilities – and adult realities of systemic racism in employment and housing – for the first time. A single setback such as employment instability, illness, mental health impediments, or any life crisis can quickly derail stability. By treating the 24-month limit as a lifetime cap, this policy reduces flexibility, limits system responsiveness, and risks pushing vulnerable young people into the adult system prematurely—where services are not developmentally tailored to their needs, and where wait times for services and housing assistance can take years.
From a clinical perspective, this policy also undermines trauma-informed and developmentally responsive care. Many young people in transitional housing programs have experienced significant adverse childhood experiences, including rejection, violence, and systemic inequities. As a therapist and case manager I have always told my young people that progress is not linear. It is common for young adults who are building out their life goals to experience setbacks that trigger anxiety, depression, or trauma responses. When a young person faces housing loss after having achieved stability, the psychological impact can be profound and often intensify feelings of failure, hopelessness, and mistrust in systems.
I urge DHS and this committee to reconsider this change and restore the ability for young people to re-access youth transitional housing when they experience renewed housing instability. I also ask that this committee question DHS on the impetus for this decision and to provide specific data points that led to a unilateral, system-wide policy change without community input. We deserve transparency.
Ensuring flexibility within the system is not about extending dependency, it’s about protecting progress and preventing young people from falling deeper into lifetime cycles of homelessness after a temporary setback.