Inspiring Nevada Solutions: NPHY and Sands Gear Up to Host the 2025 Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit

Now in its ninth year, tomorrow’s 2025 Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit, co-presented by Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth and Sands, will gather service providers, local and state leaders, and youth with lived experiences of homelessness for an informative and inspirational day designed to move Nevada toward strategies and solutions for the thousands of vulnerable youth facing homelessness in the state.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, youth homelessness in Clark County increased 34% from 2023 to 2024. Statewide, the number of young people experiencing homelessness increased by 27% from 2023 to 2024.

As always, the Summit’s centerpiece is showcasing the voices of youth with lived experiences of homelessness so that attendees can build appropriate and thoughtful solutions. Young leaders will participate in a variety of ways, including creative performances, presentations and the keynote showcase – a Youth StorySLAM in which youth will perform five-minute pieces they have prepared with mentoring by faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Greenspun College of Urban Affairs.

Youth voices will be complemented by informative sessions examining homelessness in Nevada, including an update on progress in the statewide Movement to End Youth Homelessness; an overview of findings from the Nevada Youth Experiencing Homelessness (YEH) Study, a statewide, two-year needs assessment funded by the Nevada Department of Human Services; and details on two important youth homelessness initiatives, the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program and the Youth Homelessness System Improvement initiative. Both of these programs have been funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and aim to coordinate youth homelessness approaches and response systems in the state.

To further explore the status of and opportunity for federal resources, Darla Bardine, executive director of the National Network for Youth, will outline funding and programmatic changes at the national level, and her presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on how Nevada can respond to the changing federal landscape.

New for Summit 2025 is the Movement Microproject Competition, which will engage attendees in identifying immediate actions that can be taken for specific facets of youth homelessness. The interactive session is designed to engage collective audience creativity in designing innovative solutions and will result in a project that will be implemented after the Summit. Attendees also will be invited to visit the Movement Action Center where they can find ways to contribute their time and talents to the Movement to End Youth Homelessness.

“We have achieved many critical milestones on our path to making youth homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring in Nevada,” Arash Ghafoori, CEO of NPHY, said. “Yet, factors such as a lack of affordable housing, food insecurity and other exacerbated challenges have kept incidence rates on the rise. Now we’re facing a pivotal moment – Nevada must respond to evolving federal priorities that are shifting resources, which young people and providers have counted on for many years. With the momentum we’ve built as a statewide coalition, we can and will tackle these uncertainties, and Summit 2025 once again serves as a critical juncture in our work for the year ahead.”

To learn more about 2025 Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit, visit nphy.org/Summit25.

Summit 2025 is presented by NPHY and Sands with support from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.