Assembly committee advances bill to make coordinated entry assessments youth‑specific

Assemblymember Ramos told the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee that AB 249 would “remove any obstacles” preventing homeless youth from accessing services and would fix what he called a “data flaw” in how coordinated entry prioritizes people for housing. The committee voted to pass the bill as amended to the Assembly Committee on Human Services.

The bill would require jurisdictions that use coordinated entry to adopt youth‑sensitive assessment practices so younger people are not deprioritized purely by shorter cumulative time spent homeless. Sherilyn Adams, CEO of Larkin Street Youth Services, told the committee that the common adult vulnerability tool relies heavily on length and episodes of homelessness and “for young people...that’s not the best way to assess.” Adams said San Francisco added two targeted questions to the adult assessment — whether a young person had ever traded sex or drugs for shelter and whether they had been in foster care — to surface risks that adult tools miss.

Kim Lewis of the California Coalition for Youth told the committee that research shows roughly half of chronically homeless adults first experienced homelessness when they were young and said AB 249 would help direct prevention and youth‑tailored interventions “as far upstream as possible.” Lewis and other witnesses emphasized the bill does not create a separate system for youth but requires assessment tools and intake best practices…