The Unique Role of Lawyers in Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness

Introduction

When you think of preventing youth homelessness, what comes to mind? You’ll likely think of housing, a youth shelter, or drop-in space. You might not first think of a lawyer or other legal professional, yet their role in preventing and helping youth exit homelessness is often critical. 

This article highlights important legal and justice work in Canada, the United States and beyond. The only existing formal network of attorneys and advocates serving youth and young adults experiencing homelessness, the American Bar Association’s Homeless Youth Legal Network (HYLN International), is identifying and lifting up successful legal programs serving youth across the globe and assisting in the replication of programs to serve a greater number of youth. 

We are looking to connect with people across the globe who may have legal and justice programs in their communities and profile them on the ABA’s international platform. Through connecting, we hope to learn from other programs, share resources, and work together ensure that youth and young adults around the globe experiencing homelessness have access to a legal advocate.

To learn more about the unique ways that legal professionals can work to prevent youth homelessness, join us for a Prevention Matters! panel session this September where we’ll delve into this topic more deeply. Stay tuned for registration details!

Background

Infringements of young people’s legal rights often precede their experience of homelessness and housing precarity.  Think, for example, about a sixteen year-old leaving home.  They may have issues obtaining their belongings and personal identification, registering for school independently, signing a lease, and accessing income.  They may also have criminal charges or family law issues that rupture supportive relationships and impede secure housing.  While they are unstably housed, they may experience or be at risk of domestic violence and sex trafficking. 

As adults supporting young people, we can often identify these issues as problems, but we may not realize that a young person’s legal rights are engaged, and that talking to a lawyer may be helpful. Even once a legal issue is identified, it can be difficult to access accurate legal information and navigate legal resources and referrals.  Young people often describe feelings of confusion, anxiety and overwhelm around talking to a lawyer and interacting with the legal system. 

That said, lawyers are uniquely positioned to play the role(s) of advocate, problem solver, and systems navigator. Lawyers can assist young people to access the services they need to help lift them out of homelessness by removing legal barriers that interfere with their housing, education, employment, health care and self-sufficiency. This is true of lawyers representing youth in the courtroom, as well as lawyers as part of an interdisciplinary team assisting with preventative wrap-around supports. 

Additionally, lawyers are subject to professional obligations which can help to build young people’s agency, confidence and trust. Unlike other professionals, lawyers are bound by strict rules of confidentiality. Everything a young person says to a lawyer is protected by solicitor-client privilege, which means the lawyer must have the client’s consent before sharing the information with others. Depending on the jurisdiction, this protection can extend to exempt lawyers from the requirement to report concerns for a child’s welfare and safety. 

Lawyers are also required to take instructions from their client and to ensure they avoid conflicts of interest. They must provide competent advice, ensure the client understands their options, and then listen to the young person’s goals and needs.  The young person is the decision-maker, and the lawyer must listen to their instruction, advocate vigorously on their behalf and protect their interests. These enhanced privacy protections help the young person feel heard and respected and to build trust.  

Recognizing the critical role lawyers can play in communities across the United States, the ABA Homeless Youth Legal Network (HYLN) was established in 2018 to increase the capacity and connectivity of lawyers and other advocates removing legal barriers for youth and young adults. 

HYLN increases capacity by identifying, improving, and expanding legal services and systemic/policy efforts that exist through public and private legal aid programs, public defense offices, pro bono services offered by law firms and bar associations, law school clinics, and advocacy groups. HYLN manages the only nationwide directory of legal providers in the U.S. serving this population and identifies model legal programs serving youth in geographically diverse areas (big, small, rural, densely populated, etc.) that are ripe for replication in an effort to create new programs serving youth in underserved areas of the country. 

HYLN increases connectivity by hosting a listserv of nearly 500 advocates across the country, connecting lawyers with other youth advocates in the areas of education, services, housing and more. The listserv provides a platform to share resources, solutions to common legal issues or barriers, and to connect youth with attorneys when needed. HYLN also leads community roundtables, working on the ground to bring together advocates to identify barriers, issues and solutions at the individual and system levels, as well as national convenings such as the Justice for Youth Summit in Washington, DC last fall highlighting our Model State Statute publication. HYLN has also organized two large International Summits bringing together advocates from around the world focused on ensuring the human right to housing and stability for all youth and young adults. 

Since HYLN’s successful mapping and vetting of legal services across the United States, the ABA has turned its attention to identifying programs and services around the globe in an effort to establish an international directory of legal programs, highlighting programs in other countries that are models to be replicated. The following are examples of programs in Canada and the United States that are doing path-breaking work to support youth at-risk of or experiencing homelessness in their communities. 

Program Examples in Brief

Justice for Children and Youth (Canada)

Justice for Children and Youth (JFCY) is a children’s rights legal aid clinic located in Toronto, Canada that provides legal services for young people who are under 18 and up to 25 for homeless or undocumented young people.  JFCY has run the Street Youth Legal Services (SYLS) program for over 20 years.  It is a unique legal outreach program that was developed in response to young people’s request for quality legal services that are accessible and informal.  The SYLS program has a dedicated lawyer that connects with young people experiencing homelessness where they spend time – at local drop-ins, shelters, and health clinics. The lawyer provides legal information, advice and representation through one-on-one consultations and workshops. The SYLS lawyer is also involved in policy and legal reform advocacy, and runs educational workshops with service providers wanting to learn how to better identify and support youth to address their legal needs. The program is based on the premise that young people require accessibly designed legal services, should know their rights, and must see that justice is not only possible but worth the effort to pursue (Chan & Huys, 2019). This is achieved by: 

• Providing clients with the information they need about their options to make informed decisions
• Informing youth of their rights and reiterating them consistently 
• Respecting the voice and choice of the young person

Listening to and taking young people’s instructions, being accountable to young people for promises made and actions taken, and creating clear processes for complaints and appeals are all elements of successfully centering youths’ rights. In 2022-2023, the SYLS program was able to assist 204 youth with 274 distinct legal issues (Annual Report 2022-2023). By partnering with local youth-serving organizations, advising on local and national committees and boards, and engaging in constitutional challenges of government legislation, JFCY and the SYLS program are continuing to push the boundaries and think about not only addressing the legal barriers facing youth as they encounter them, but also removing them to ensure all of the systems young people interact with center and respect youths’ rights. 

Legal Counsel for Youth and Children (United States)

Based in Washington state, Legal Counsel for Youth and Children (LCYC) is one of the HYLN Model Programs. LCYC is an organization focused on providing young people with legal support and targeted programs in the areas of child welfare, juvenile court, youth and family immigration, and youth homelessness. Key elements of their approach include: 

• Developing trust-based community partnerships with humility to ask and listen to whether/what services are wanted and needed 
• Holistic, youth-directed representation to meet young people where they are while providing flexible representation and support or making referrals to ensure non-legal needs are also being met simultaneously
• Trauma-informed attorneys and staff who understand how complex trauma impacts and manifests in young peoples’ lives and legal issues
• Anti-racist approach that understands the oppressive nature of systems and is attuned to ways in which racism shows up within the court system itself

Their Youth Homelessness Program provides free civil legal services to young people 12-24 years old who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness or housing instability. This includes access to attorneys in six counties in Washington. Youth do not need to be experiencing homelessness to receive legal services, and LCYC reduces barriers to accessing support by  meeting young people where they feel comfortable, oftentimes meeting in shelters and schools. LCYC is able to respond to legal issues including, but not limited to securing identification documents, accessing housing, education, employment, and public benefits, addressing landlord/tenant issues and evictions, and navigating child protective services. A 2018 evaluation of LCYC’s initial pilot of this approach to supporting youth in King County yielded strong positive results. Minors’ and young adults’ legal issues were resolved in 76% of cases, and in 92% of cases attorneys reported being able to remove a barrier to housing, income, employment or education. Overall, 100% of the young people who accessed services had legal issues resolved or barriers removed. Improving safety and self-advocacy are critical outcomes for success, which may temporarily disrupt current housing arrangements but in the long-term can prevent housing loss and homelessness due to family relationship breakdown.

Conclusion: Call to Action

Legal and justice services can play vital roles in facilitating youths’ exits from homelessness and can even prevent homelessness if they are available, accessible, and appropriate to the young people who need them. Justice for Children and Youth and Legal Council for Youth and Children are outstanding examples of such services that meet youth where they are and listen and act upon their direction. 

The American Bar Association’s Homeless Youth Legal Network, with the support of Baker & McKenzie and the Toronto Centre of Excellence on Youth Homelessness Prevention, are conducting a global survey of legal barriers, existing services, and unmet needs of youth experiencing homelessness. We encourage anyone serving this population to fill out the survey to help us build a repository of program models that can be replicated or adapted to different contexts. The more we can lean on each other’s learnings, the better we can connect with and advocate for improved access and availability of services for young people facing legal barriers that prevent their long-term stability and wellbeing. Please complete the survey today and share widely with your networks. Together, with the support of lawyers and other legal advocates, we can end youth homelessness. 

Survey Link: Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management