Collaboratively with communities across America, USICH and our federal partners developed a national vision for what it means to end homelessness, ensuring it is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The Criteria and Benchmarks for Achieving the Goal of Ending Youth Homelessness ensure all communities are working towards that goal.
Criteria and benchmarks work together to provide a complete picture of a community’s response to homelessness. Criteria represent the essential elements of a community’s response, while benchmarks serve as measurements that a community can use to evaluate its overall effectiveness.
To develop the criteria and benchmarks, USICH and federal partners sought input and guidance from key stakeholders, including local service providers, Continuums of Care, national partner organizations, advocates, and youth with lived experiences of homelessness. These criteria and benchmarks represent our best thinking at this time and we will continue to review and evaluate their effectiveness as more communities approach and succeed in meeting the goal of ending youth homelessness.