A Way Home America is a national initiative to build the movement to prevent and end homelessness among young people. The New Deal to End Youth Homelessness is a federal policy proposal that offers a roadmap to transform how young people, particularly Black, Brown, Indigenous, and LGBTQ young people, are supported in our society. The five pillars of the new deal are outlined to include housing justice, child and family well-being justice, legal systems justice, economic justice, and immigration justice. Each pillar will focus on three efforts, reform, transformative edge, and transformation.
On Thursday, April 22, 2021, the Child and Family Well-Being Justice pillar town hall was held to address the need to focus on supporting families, including kinship caregivers and “chosen family,” remaining intact with biological families, or providing safe alternatives of a youth’s choice. The discussion centered around the need to abolish foster care, congregate placements, and provide youth with the support to live independently.
The strategies to achieve child and family well-being justice include:
- Create a new front door to a transformed system focused on child and family well-being that offers families and older youth direct and immediate access to economic resources and supportive services, centers the goal of keeping families safely together, and supports youth to live independently if they choose.
- Abolish the need for foster care, divest from congregate care, and invest in family, kinship, and supported independent living.
- Invest in the economic resources and supportive services youth and their families need to successfully support transitions to adulthood.
To stay up-to-date on the New Deal’s progress and town hall dates, please visit awayhomeamerica.info/newdeal.
