The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is hosting a webinar on January 21, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. ET, which will address the economic stability of service members, Veterans, and their families (SMVF). This webinar will explore critical areas such as employment opportunities, income supports, SSI/SSDI, Outreach, Access, and Recovery (SOAR) for Veterans, and housing solutions, providing valuable information and resources to support maintaining or achieving economic stability among the SMVF community.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) will host a national webinar for state TANF programs and partners entitled Building Strategic Partnerships and Maximizing TANF Flexibilities to Reduce Housing Stability on January 15, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. ET to roll out its newly released Dear Colleague Letter on Housing Stability. OFA will provide an overview of current and relevant research for TANF programs and will offer peer perspectives from two TANF programs investing in housing stability activities.   

The webinar also will help increase knowledge about approaches for addressing housing instability for families, facilitate the introduction of new partnerships, and share options for maximizing TANF flexibilities to reduce housing instability for families and children and achieve TANF purposes.

This Office on Trafficking in Persons fact sheet provides an overview of community resources and highlights programs assisting with job training, food, energy bills, housing, childcare, and recovery services for those affected by trafficking. Support for disaster recovery and access to social services such as substance use treatment and mental health care are also included.

In the U.S., 1 in 10 young adults experience homelessness each year, with disproportionate impacts on American Indian and Alaska Native, Black, multiracial, and Hispanic youth and youth who have been involved with the child welfare or juvenile justice systems. Current housing solutions for youth homelessness often lack flexibility or are not readily available, leaving many young adults waiting long periods of time without stable housing. However, the Cash Plus Model offers a promising alternative — pairing direct cash transfers with youth-driven supportive services to empower young adults in securing safe, stable housing. Chapin Hall has developed two briefs: one describing the Cash Plus Model and the second evaluating the Cash Plus Model implementation in New York City and San Francisco.

Many young people transition to adulthood without access to familial resources and struggle to meet their basic needs. Public benefit programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing subsidies, and Medicaid can help young people meet these needs at a critical time in their lives. Young people also need sufficient cash income to meet specific needs these in-kind programs do not provide, and some may receive this through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. However, many young people do not access programs they are eligible for. This Urban Institute report presents the results of a literature scan for evidence about what works to expand young people’s access to public benefits. This report highlights various promising approaches, including targeted youth outreach, benefit navigation, cross-organizational partnerships, simplifying or expanding eligibility, and enhancing administrative efficiency and effectiveness.

Administrative burden occurs when individuals are faced with obstacles that hinder their ability to fully participate in society and to access programs and benefits for which they qualify. This can affect many aspects of life, including voting, enrolling for health care coverage or educational opportunities, and applying for social safety net programs like SNAP, Unemployment Insurance, or the Housing Choice Voucher program. While most people will interact with one or more of these systems on a regular basis, low-income people and those from otherwise marginalized groups are particularly vulnerable to the barriers that are in place. The Institute for Research on Poverty hosted a webinar in September 2024, where presenters discussed their research on the causes and impacts of administrative burden as seen in several programs. This recording offers applications and implications for policy and practice approaches that can alleviate administrative burden for affected individuals and communities.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance hosted the Regions IX and X State Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Technical Assistance Meeting from August 29 to August 30, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. This meeting was designed to amplify programs’ wisdom in the room by fostering peer-to-peer learning and collaborative planning that will help jurisdictions innovate solutions that improve outcomes for families.

In 2016, the Annie E. Casey Foundation launched Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP™), a national initiative that helps youth and young adults who have been involved in the foster care or justice systems or who have experienced homelessness succeed in school and work by building and expanding education and employment pathways. Through partnerships with public agencies, postsecondary education, housing, service providers and more, LEAP partners are working toward improving policies and practices that place more systems-involved young people on positive economic trajectories. This Annie E. Casey Foundation brief shares the key takeaways from an evaluation conducted to better understand their efforts in tackling the root causes of disconnection from education and careers with systems-involved youth.

Qualitative data indicate guaranteed income programs—which provide cash directly to beneficiaries—provide real stability to people in need. But, while waiting for the quantitative data to come in, researchers are brainstorming on how to maximize this approach. This Abt podcast episode discusses two outstanding questions that researchers have: What do we still have to learn about cash transfers as a means of empowering people, and can making payments directly to households be a more effective way of providing rent subsidies?

This American Public Human Services Association and Chapin Hall “Evidence to Impact” tool provides examples of state policy options aligned with peer-reviewed research, organized by the policy levers at agencies’ disposal, including macroeconomic supports (Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, minimum wage, paid family leave, employment and job creation), concrete supports (child care, housing, health care, flexible funds, direct cash transfers), and public assistance programs (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children). Used in concert with meaningful policy and practice improvement efforts, this policy tool allows jurisdictions to assess their current policy landscape and consider future opportunities to expand access to economic and concrete supports as a primary prevention strategy.