On any night in Nevada, more than 300 youth are without a stable place to live, a bed to call their own, or even modest shelter to shield them from the outdoors. As a result, thousands of youths in our state experience homelessness every year.
In fact, roughly 12 percent of youth experiencing homelessness across the United States resided in Nevada in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Our state has consistently ranked among the top in the United States for the highest number of youths experiencing homelessness.
In an effort to turn around these alarming statistics, we established a focused, sustained and community-wide initiative: The Movement to End Youth Homelessness.
The Movement officially launched in 2017 at the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit, which has continued to bring together key stakeholders annually to collaborate for lasting solutions to aid at-risk and homeless youth.
Now called the Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit, our seventh annual convening is expanding to a statewide focus in November, representing the important progress we have made in Southern Nevada and the need to unify our efforts with other allies throughout the state to make lasting change.
History of the Movement to End Youth Homelessness
As we look ahead to the first statewide Summit on November 8 at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, we celebrate the accomplishments made so far:
- Since 2017, NPHY and Las Vegas Sands have presented the annual Summit to bring together stakeholders from across sectors for learning and action. Each year, this event seeks to inform and inspire community members to take action to prevent, reduce and eliminate youth homelessness.
- In 2018, The Movement led the process to create the first Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness. The plan was created in collaboration with the Southern Nevada Homelessness Continuum of Care (SNH CoC) and national experts with the input of more than 40 crosssector organizations and youth with lived experiences of homelessness.
- In 2019, The Movement championed AB 363, which is now a Nevada state law, to eliminate barriers to obtaining vital identification documents for youth experiencing homelessness.
- In 2021, The Movement championed AB 197, which is now a Nevada state law to strengthen unaccompanied minors’ access to healthcare services.
- In 2022, The Movement collaborated with the SNH CoC and national experts to lead the process of creating the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Community Needs Assessment to understand better the current landscape of youth homelessness in our community.
Joining the Movement to End Youth Homelessness
Now is the time for anyone interested in making a difference in the lives of youth experiencing homelessness to get involved. Building lasting and long-term solutions requires that all voices are represented and all stakeholders collaborate.
Summit 2023 represents an excellent opportunity to learn about the Movement and find a way to contribute as we get organized and mobilized to establish Nevada’s first standalone plan to address youth homelessness, expanding the initial Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness created five years ago.
The Summit 2023 slate of events includes:
- An inspirational keynote address by Jimmy Santiago Baca, winner of the International Prize for his memoir A Place to Stand. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of 21 and faced five to 10 years in prison for selling drugs. A former homeless youth, he learned to read while in prison and began to turn his life around, eventually emerging as an artist of the spoken and written word.
- An update on progress made in the Movement to End Youth Homelessness
- A special presentation by youth experiencing homelessness
- Regional perspectives on housing and services, fundraising, policy, systems intersectionality and public/private partnerships from southern, northern, rural and tribal representatives
- A panel discussion exploring opportunities, challenges, similarities and differences among regional leaders
- Breakout sessions focused on turning insights into action for building the statewide plan
Visit https://nphy.org/summit23 for more information and to register for Summit 2023, which is presented by NPHY and Las Vegas Sands with support from the UNLV Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Members of the editorial and news staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal were not involved in the creation of this content.