Housing Solutions Lab
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Testing a new tool to connect unhoused minors with housing and services in rural Missouri
April 8, 2024
By Danya Rubenstein-Markiewicz
Overview
In 2022, the Housing Solutions Lab awarded a grant to Hsun-Ta Hsu, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina; and Sarah Myers Tlapek, Ph.D., Director of Community Research for Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri (CPSEMO) and adjunct instructor at the College of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri.
The investigators, the second of three Lab-funded external teams engaged in local housing policy research in small and midsize cities to publish their work, set out to determine whether a form developed by providers helping homeless youth made it easier for minors experiencing homelessness to access housing services in rural Missouri. They also researched the perceived barriers and pathways among providers in implementing the form.
The findings, recently published in a report titled Correlates of Housing Sustainability Among Youth Placed Into Permanent Supportive Housing and Rapid Re-Housing: A Survival Analysis, indicated that the form helped service providers understand minor homeless youth’s needs. The team also concluded that the form is a helpful way to assist providers to translate the application of legal statutes into improving service provision with the potential to create an official pathway for minor homeless youth toward independent living and connect youth with services that might otherwise be unavailable. However, due to limited awareness among service providers, more data is needed to determine the form’s effectiveness.
Background
Over 700,000 unaccompanied minors experience homelessness in the United States. During early developmental stages, being unhoused can seriously impact individuals’ future housing and health outcomes. To help unhoused minors, Missouri and 12 other states granted legal rights and protections to enable them to exit homelessness quickly by accessing housing and other services independently. Yet despite these protections in place, Missouri’s Balance of State Continuum of Care (BoS CoC), which coordinates homeless service providers across 101 rural counties, observed that minor youth faced longer wait times for housing resources than their adult counterparts. Minors also dealt with more barriers to services, such as landlords not wanting to rent to them.
In response to these disparities, The Flourish Initiative in Columbia, Missouri, partnered with the BoS CoC to develop a provider-initiated qualified minor verification form (QMVF) in 2021 for youth aged 16-17 to easily access services, including entering a housing contract, buying a car, or setting up a bank account. The form serves as a legal certification for qualified minor status, a type of emancipation that does not require a judge’s determination. In addition, The Flourish Initiative created a training program on Missouri’s emancipation statutes for minors and QMVF procedures.
Image: The revised qualified minor verification form, as of 2023
Methods
Investigators set out to 1) research perceived barriers and/or facilitators among providers in implementing the QMVF and 2) investigate if the form does in fact make it easier for minor youth experiencing homelessness to more quickly access housing services in rural Missouri. The researchers evaluated Columbia, Farmington, Branson, Jefferson City, and Cape Girardeau.
There were two phases of the study. The first was a process evaluation to examine stakeholders’ perceptions and views on the QMVF and training program. The researchers conducted 14 face-to-face semi-structured Zoom interviews with community homeless service providers and three focus group discussions with the BoS CoC youth advisory board. The second phase involved an outcome evaluation to investigate the impacts of the QMVF and associated trainings on how to use the form. This phase used a mixed-methods approach, including data analysis from the homeless management information system (HMIS) to determine whether age is associated with the length of time it takes to exit homelessness and if the QMVF implementation affected that relationship. Researchers also interviewed BoS CoC regional leaders to identify facilitators of and barriers to the QMVF and other CoC resources.
Findings
The process evaluation provided feedback for revisions to the QMVF and its trainings. During interviews, providers expressed that the QMVF was easy to use and could help them better understand youth’s needs. BoS CoC youth advisory board members believed that the QMVF could help minor youth experiencing homelessness seek resources that might not be available otherwise. However, providers said the QMVF is only effective with community buy-in from landlords and other stakeholders. They also noted that other providers may hesitate to use the QMVF due to a lack of knowledge of qualified minor status regulations. Providers suggested ongoing assistance and QMVF trainings to ensure community participation.
As a result of the process evaluation, The Flourish Initiative and BoS CoC revised the front of the QMVF to include language on good faith immunity for legal consequences certifying youth experiencing homelessness as qualified minors. They also incorporated mock scenarios and an FAQ section into trainings, which were offered in-person, virtually, and through the BoS CoC website. To address ongoing assistance needs, an online self-directed training module is currently under development. Finally, the BoS CoC integrated the QMVF into their new youth homeless demonstration project.
The outcome evaluation’s analysis highlighted how minor status led to longer homelessness exit times. Quantitative analysis has not yet shown that QMVF implementation shortens exit times for minors. Interviews suggested this may be because many providers still need to be made aware about the QMVF as they have limited staff capacity and an already considerable workload. Interviews also highlighted confusion over who was responsible for sharing and promoting youth-related resources. These findings suggested that endorsements from administrative decision makers or funders could lead to better dissemination of the QMVF. As service providers and BoS CoC leaders increase awareness of the QMVF and its utility, the researchers will continue to test whether the form can speed homelessness exits for minor youth in rural Missouri.
Relevance
The QMVF offers the potential to create an “official pathway” to independent living for youth experiencing homelessness. Researchers found that providers and youth perceive the QMVF and accompanying training as helpful and easy to use. In the future, use of the QMVF could expand to other states that grant legal rights to minor youth experiencing homelessness. The form has potential to play a role in areas where there is a need to reduce demand on court systems to process legal emancipation cases.
Ongoing challenges to overcome in Missouri include addressing a lack of provider awareness of the QMVF across the state and growing the amount of buy-in from community stakeholders. As awareness increases, the form’s impact on successful homelessness exits may become measurably significant. More efforts are needed to promote the QMVF and determine its effectiveness.
For questions about this research, contact Hsun-Ta Hsu, Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina, and Sarah Myers Tlapek, Ph.D., from Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri (CPSEMO) and adjunct instructor at the College of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri
For support on how your city can assist unhoused youth, contact the Housing Solutions Lab team at Ask the Lab.
