Nevada lacks resources, funding to adequately address youth homelessness, statewide report finds

By Michael Lyle

Nevada Current

Nearly 3,000 youth experiencing homelessness in Nevada reached out to various social service providers for help last year, a number that more than likely falls orders of magnitude short of the actual number of youths who lack stable housing.

Yet infrastructure and funding to prevent and end homelessness among youth is sorely lacking, a recent statewide report found.

Youth-serving nonprofits and advocacy groups, state and local agencies, homeless service providers, youth who have experienced homelessness, and social workers all collaborated on the two-year study. The findings were released in August in the Youth Experiencing Homelessness Statewide Report.

The report showed there were 2,834 youth ages 12 to 24 who were identified in 2024 through the Homeless Management Information System, which tracks service interventions among unhoused people — 2,868 were identified the year before.

There are only 430 beds in Nevada shelters dedicated specifically for the youth population, none of which are in the 15 rural counties.

Of the many takeaways and recommendations, the report found Nevada “currently lacks the necessary infrastructure, leadership, and funding” to solve youth homelessness and needs a dedicated state entity if it wants to prevent and end youth homelessness.

The analysis comes amid uncertainty around what federal funding and resources will be available to address homelessness, yet alone for youth experiencing homelessness.

The report underscores that Nevada needs to “take increased ownership and accountability for this issue,” said Arash Ghafoori, executive director Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth.

“We have relied on federal funding streams, federal definitions, and other federal entities that drive a lot of our system work when it comes to homelessness,” Ghafoori said. “Now that there’s sort of turbulent times there, it’s even more important to think about Nevada driving the investigation of what’s wrong, and driving the solution and investments” to address the problems.

Recommendations to address youth homelessness include developing a guaranteed basic income for youth, designating state general funds to build and support youth-specific housing and shelter beds, reducing barriers for youth to access housing and health care, and creating a statewide coordinated response to specifically address this population.

The study estimates the cost of providing permanent housing for an individual youth at $20,014. Adding 1,000 youth-focused permanent housing options would cost the state an estimated $20 million a year.

The analysis provides policymakers and providers a better understanding of “who the young people are from a demographic standpoint,” Andre Wade, state director of Silver State Equality who helped lead the study, said, adding it will help give the state a better insight of “what interventions and resources are available, but more importantly, what’s not available and what’s needed.”

Added Ghafoori, “The money exists in our community. We need to prioritize it.”

Understanding the issue

The transient nature of homelessness, along with inconsistent definitions of homelessness and reporting requirements, render the scope of Nevada youth homelessness difficult to understand, service providers say.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have different definitions of homelessness, with the former looking at literal homelessness — living in places not meant for human habitation — and the latter considering inadequate or infrequent housing like weekly motels.

Similar problems exist when it comes to collecting youth demographic data such as race or LGBTQ+ affiliation.

These longstanding problems became more apparent during the Covid pandemic, when the state received funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Wade said.

State and local officials began discussing how to use millions of dollars in unprecedented funding provided by ARPA to address the state’s ongoing housing shortage.

“Housing for youth is rarely, if ever, part of the actual conversation,” he said. “There just wasn’t information about the number of young people to determine how much money we would want for housing.”

ARPA funding was used to kick off a two-year study starting in 2023 to better understand the number of youth experiencing homelessness, their specific needs, and what resources were lacking, culminating in the Youth Experiencing Homelessness Statewide Report.

‘Have not touched the system yet’

While less than 3,000 youth statewide sought services to address homelessness, an estimated 33,443 youth under the age of 24 in Nevada could experience homelessness or lack adequate stable housing in any given year.

The estimate was based on “national prevalence data, which reports that 10 percent of young adults (18-25) and 3 percent of adolescents (13-17)” are unhoused over a course of a year, the report says.

”The actual number of young people … that we know we actually served, is still a significant undercount,” Ghafoori said. “There’s so many young people that are doubled up. There’s so many young people that have not touched the system yet.”

There were less than 500 beds for youth experiencing homelessness in 2024, all of them in Clark and Washoe counties.

Nearly three-quarters of them are emergency shelter beds or transitional housing, which the report notes “are short-to-medium term options that, if not paired with permanent housing options can become cyclical and keep individuals in a state of instability rather than providing a long-term solution.”

“None of these beds are located in Nevada’s 15 rural counties, which may have as many as 3,309 youth experiencing homelessness each year,” the report notes.

Youth homelessness in rural and tribal communities “often takes on less visible forms,” the report reads.

“Young people in these communities may rely on extended family or informal networks for shelter due to a lack of formal housing providers that operate in their area,” the report says. “Youth aging out of foster care are especially vulnerable, and some youth may choose to leave their communities altogether in search of greater opportunity or support in urban areas.”

Only a quarter of youth “successfully exited to permanency” between 2021 and 2024 according to the report and “between 56 percent to 68 percent had no known exit to permanency during the period covered by the study.“

The findings show that two-third of youth “served in Nevada had no record of achieving housing

Permanency” during that same time period and that “at least 4,379 youth who entered homelessness with no evidence that they exited into a stable housing situation.”

Similar to adult homeless populations, there is a disproportionately large number of Black youth who experience homelessness.

Of the youth that utilized services — again, far from the true number of those in need — 41 percent identify as Black and 25 percent as white, according to the report.

Though 6 percent identify as Hispanic, the report notes it’s likely an undercount due to inadequate data collection procedures, the improvement of which being among the state’s recommendations.

The data and recommendations were compiled between July 2023 and January 2025. The report notes that “youth who reviewed recommendations in February 2025 suggested that the environment has changed for youth, with more expressing fear and concern about the future due to the changed, and continuously changing, environment.”

“Shifts in federal policies regarding homeless and social services may impact the resources and

frameworks available to support vulnerable youth, including LGBTQ+ individuals and youth of color,” the report says.

Inaction costs more

One of the report’s many recommendations calls on the state to establish housing trust funds “financed through dedicated revenue sources, such as real estate transaction fees or taxes.”

Funding to confront youth homelessness isn’t just a moral imperative, the report reads. It makes the case for it to be an economic necessity, adding that “the cost of not ending youth homelessness is notably higher.”

Failing to invest in youth homelessness prevention not only leads to overburdening other systems, such as emergency rooms or jails, but there is “actually a labor force argument to investing in youth homelessness,” Ghafoori said.

If elected officials can be convinced to think beyond “one-term optics and say, ‘hey, the state is going to be in a worse situation in 5, 10, and 15 years unless we take these actions,’ then maybe we can start convincing them, because there’s a price tag and there’s an impact to their future constituents and neighbors,” he said.

Wade hopes the findings will persuade people who oppose the development of supportive housing in their neighborhoods.

“We need to get young people off the street,” he said. “A lot of the pushback across the U.S. is the NIMBY, not in my backyard. It’s going to take the community to be able to support these young people and possible projects that may be built in their neighborhood.”

While building housing, and expanding youth-specific beds, is important, it’s not the only solution the state needs to consider, Ghafoori said.

“The solutions to youth homelessness are complex, they vary, and they just don’t necessarily involve infrastructure,” he said. “Although infrastructure is critically important, you can’t build a house without a foundation, and we need more of that sort of foundation happening in our community.”

One proposal highlighted in the report: direct cash transfers of guaranteed basic income, in which youth experiencing homelessness are given direct financial assistance.

“We already know the advantages of (direct cash transfers) and how providing that basic income has been effective not just around the world in developed countries, but has been effective in the pilots here in the United States,” Ghafoori said.

Other policy considerations the report highlights include decriminalizing “acts of survival” like sleeping in public places, limiting the use of criminal background checks in housing applications, investing in early intervention models such as family reunification for youth, and having policies tailored to LGBTQ+ youth and youth of color.

“This issue is getting shoved under the rug and doesn’t get the spotlight it deserves,” Ghafoori said.

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Michael Lyle (MJ to some) is an award-winning journalist with Nevada Current. In addition to covering state and local policy and politics, Michael reports extensively on homelessness and housing policy. He graduated from UNLV with B.A. in Journalism and Media Studies and later earned an M.S. in Communications at Syracuse University.