The number of young people experiencing homelessness in Travis County, which includes most of Austin, has risen substantially in the past four years, according to numbers from a nonprofit that tracks the issue. Youth homelessness in Austin has been no exception.

Since 2020, the number of people under 25 years old without permanent housing and not under the care of a parent or legal guardian has nearly quadrupled, jumping from 247 people to 934, according to LifeWorks. This data excludes families with kids who may be experiencing homelessness.

“It’s alarming in the sense that it signifies the work that we have to do,” said David Gray, the city’s homeless strategy officer.

Gray and Liz Schoenfeld, the CEO of LifeWorks, both said one factor that may have contributed to this jump is better data. Gray said the city has been doing more outreach with people living on the streets and the difference in these numbers could reflect, in part, a better count of those experiencing homelessness.

LifeWorks pulled the data from the Homeless Management Information System, a portal shared by local organizations that work with homeless people. Organizations use this database to log personal information, track the needs of those living on the streets and share resources about housing.

The numbers pulled by LifeWorks come from a list of people in this database who are on a waitlist for housing. A spokesperson for ECHO, the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, confirmed the data from 2023 and 2024. He could not confirm earlier numbers because LifeWorks had recorded them in real time.

Youth Homelessness in Austin: The Foster Care and Juvenile Justice System

Schoenfeld said about two-thirds of young people experiencing homelessness in Austin have either been involved in the foster care or juvenile justice systems. She said moving from family to family, as some kids in the foster care system do, could be traumatizing. According to state data from 2023, children in foster care in Texas had an average of four placements.

“When you think about having that many transitions, changing schools, potentially, that many times, it’s not surprising that young people are really, really challenged to then make it on their own when they’re exiting the foster care system,” Schoenfeld said.

Read the full article about youth homelessness in Austin by Audrey McGlinchy at Austin Monitor.