Family Homelessness

This brief presents considerations for program administrators and other practitioners around increasing the use of primary prevention in human services systems to shift from responding to families after they are in crisis to preventing the crisis before it occurs.

This brief provides key considerations for policy designers and funding partners—such as federal staff, technical experts, and philanthropic partners—on incorporating primary prevention into human services delivery.

This brief highlights a new way of delivering primary prevention services that promotes equity by relying on the guidance and leadership of people with lived experience. The policy designers and service providers behind prevention services should have lived experience and/or co-create these services with people who do.

This brief highlights key themes and ideas from a Health and Human Services (HHS) Convening on Advancing Primary Prevention in Human Services in August 2022. With a particular focus on prevention of youth and family homelessness, the convening featured the perspectives of academic experts, program administrators, federal colleagues, and people with lived expertise.

New analysis of data from HUD's Family Options Study finds that about 30 percent of sheltered homeless families reported a separation from at least one family member. Family transitions continued in the following 20 months, with 10 percent of families experiencing new child separations and 8 percent reporting reunification with children who had not been with the family in shelter.