Good morning, Committee Chair Frumin and members of the Committee on Human Services. My name is Rachel White, and I serve as the Deputy Director of Youth Advocacy at DC Action. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
The Mayor’s proposed FY26 budget includes a $1.6 million reduction to the youth homelessness continuum of services—representing nearly 7% of current investments in a system that is already overstretched and has been effectively flat funded for the past four years.1 These proposed cuts include reductions to the Permanent Supportive Housing, Transitional Housing, and youth homelessness continuum line items. Of particular concern is the nearly $1 million or 25% cut to Permanent Supportive Housing which funds both PSH vouchers and case management and Extended Transitional Housing. PSH is the only long term permanency planning option within the youth system for youth with the most barriers to financial independence and ETH provides 3 years of stability and support to transition into stable adulthood for youth with some of the most acute needs. While my colleague Jorge will speak to these cuts in more detail, I want to emphasize how vital it is that we budget and build policy infrastructure that is both strategic and responsive.
According to The State of Youth Homelessness in the District of Columbia, nearly 1 in 5 youth—an estimated 10,000 young people—experience some form of housing instability each year. With just 2,678 youth served by DHS-funded programs in Fiscal Year 2024,2 it would seem clear the system is not meeting the full scale need among housing insecure youth yet the Mayor’s budget proposes reductions raising cause for alarm. If we had a current, responsive strategic plan rooted in data and on-the ground input from youth and community-based service providers to guide our budgetary decisions we would know answers about the downstream impacts of proposed cuts like these. Instead we are left asking:
- What do these program line cuts mean for the broader youth homelessness continuum? And how do cuts to one housing solution or one grantee impact continuity of care for young people or other services provided by that grantee?
- How many youth will be turned away from long term and bridge housing services? Does this bring us closer or farther from a goal of ending youth homelessness?
- Is the intention to reduce the number of youth drop-in centers, reduce their hours, change locations, or force the centers to serve less youth overall? What pressures will youth drop in center changes put on the adult and/or family system?
- Will these cuts reduce access to trauma-informed, identity-affirming services like career readiness, behavioral health care, and financial literacy—especially for populations that face compounding barriers, such as transgender and gender non-conforming youth? The TGNC Youth Experiencing Homelessness Workforce Program is one such resource, offering tailored economic mobility and wraparound supports. We urge the Committee to restore paused FY25 funding and protect the $600,000 in recurring FY26 funding to maintain this singularly supportive pathway to economic stability for TGNC youth.
These are the types of questions a functional strategic plan must be able to answer—before, not after, funding decisions are made. Without clarity, we risk unraveling key components of a system that has been carefully built to meet youth where they are, squandering resources.
We urge this committee to adopt a Budget Support Act (BSA) subtitle requiring the Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Department of Human Services to conduct ongoing strategic planning and evaluation processes for the youth system, akin to the strategic planning structures already in place for the adult and family systems.
This subtitle should make revisions to the 2015 BSA subtitle to “End Youth Homelessness” (codified as § 4–752.02a.) to include several key provisions:
- A requirement to evaluate the implementation and outcomes of previous youth homelessness plans;
- Measurable, forward-looking goals and deadlines;
- Clear interagency and cross-sector collaboration requirements, including data transparency and sharing requirements;
- Regular public progress reports to ensure transparency and accountability;
- Authorization for ICH and DHS to leverage in-house or pro-bono support from peer agencies and community partners such as The Lab @ DC or DC Action to inform and share in the workload of plan development and evaluation.
We also strongly urge this committee to adopt an additional BSA subtitle to reform DHS’s contracting and grant payment processes. Currently, many nonprofit providers are forced to deliver services under contracts that are delayed for months and then subject to reimbursement- only payment models. This strains their ability to maintain operations, pay staff, and provide consistent and quality care.
We believe a payment reform subtitle should require that DHS proactively annually pay up to 50% of a grant award upon execution of a grant agreement, similar to how the Deputy Mayor for Education’s Office executes grant payments to out-of-school-time providers. Enacting this policy change would:
- Improve cash flow and financial stability for providers;
- Reduce reliance on emergency fundraising, credit, or loans to cover basic costs;
- Enable more timely and consistent delivery of high-quality services to youth;
- Allow providers to better retain staff and plan strategically, instead of operating in survival mode.
Together, these reforms would help ensure that limited resources are not only preserved—but used more effectively and equitably. A truly equitable youth homelessness system must be designed around prevention, long-term stability, and trust-building with young people. That can only happen if we commit to ongoing evaluation, strategic planning, and systems that support—not delay—service delivery.
Thank you for your time, and for your continued commitment to addressing youth homelessness in the District.