2023 Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit: Tracking Progress in the Movement to End Youth Homelessness

On a given night in Nevada, more than 300 youth are without a stable place to live, a bed to call their own or even modest shelter to shield them from the outdoors. As a result, thousands of Nevada youth experience homelessness every year.

In fact, roughly 12% of youth experiencing homelessness across the United States resided in Nevada in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The state has consistently ranked among the top in the United States for the highest number of youths experiencing homelessness.

In an effort to turn around these alarming statistics, Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth and Sands established a focused, sustained and community-wide initiative: the Movement to End Youth Homelessness.

The Movement officially launched in 2017 at the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit, which has continued to bring together key stakeholders annually to collaborate for lasting solutions to aid at-risk and homeless youth.

Now called the Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit, the seventh annual convening is expanding to a statewide focus in November, representing the important progress made in Southern Nevada and the need to unify efforts among allies throughout the state to make lasting change.

History of the Movement to End Youth Homelessness

Looking ahead to the first statewide Summit on Nov. 8 at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, the following are accomplishments made so far:

• Since 2017, Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth and Las Vegas Sands have presented the annual Summit to bring together stakeholders from across sectors for learning and action. Each year, this event seeks to inform and inspire community members to take action to prevent, reduce and eliminate youth homelessness.
• In 2018, The Movement led the process to create the first Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness. The plan was created in collaboration with the Southern Nevada Homelessness Continuum of Care (SNH CoC) and national experts with the input of more than 40 cross­sector organizations and youth with lived experiences of homelessness.
• In 2019, The Movement championed AB 363, which is now a Nevada state law to eliminate barriers to obtaining vital identification documents for youth experiencing homelessness.
• In 2021, The Movement championed AB 197, which is now a Nevada state law to strengthen unaccompanied minors’ access to healthcare services.
• In 2022, The Movement collaborated with the SNH CoC and national experts to lead the process to create the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Community Needs Assessment to better understand the current landscape of youth homelessness in the Southern Nevada community.

Joining the Movement to End Youth Homelessness

Now is the time for anyone interested in making a difference in the lives of youth experiencing homelessness to get involved. Building lasting and long-term solutions requires that all voices are represented, and all stakeholders collaborate.

Summit 2023 represents a great opportunity for Nevadans to learn about the Movement and find a way to contribute, as stakeholders get organized and mobilized to establish the state’s first standalone plan to address youth homelessness, expanding the initial Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness created five years ago.

The Summit 2023 slate of events includes:

• An inspirational keynote address by Jimmy Santiago Baca, winner of the International Prize for his memoir A Place to Stand. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of 21 and faced five to 10 years in prison for selling drugs. A former homeless youth, he learned to read while in prison and began to turn his life around, eventually emerging as an artist of the spoken and written word.
• An update on progress made in the Movement to End Youth Homelessness
• A special presentation by youth experiencing homelessness
• Regional perspectives on housing and services, fundraising, policy, systems intersectionality and public/private partnerships from southern, northern, rural and tribal representatives
• A panel discussion exploring opportunities, challenges, similarities and differences by regional leaders
• Breakout sessions focused on turning insights into action for building the statewide plan

Visit https://nphy.org/summit23 for more information and to register for Summit 2023, which is presented by NPHY and Las Vegas Sands with support from the UNLV Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.