Youth Homelessness Data Gaps

Every January, states count the number of people sleeping outside or in shelters. It’s called the Point-in-Time (PIT) count, and it’s the federal standard for tracking homelessness. But for youth, especially those moving between foster care, couch surfing, or detention, the PIT count misses far more than it finds. The result is a data mirage: official numbers that show only a fraction of the crisis.

Key Findings

Across the Mid-South, youth homelessness data are improving but still fragmented. Arkansas’s 2023 PIT count identified about 150 unaccompanied youth statewide—a number that advocates acknowledge is dramatically low. In contrast, the Arkansas Department of Education’s McKinney –Vento program identified more than 3,000 students experiencing homelessness that same year. The gap exists because schools, shelters, and juvenile justice programs all use different definitions and timelines.

Mississippi and Tennessee report similar inconsistencies. In 2024, Mississippi’s Balance of State Continuum of Care began integrating its youth data with child welfare and juvenile court systems. Within months, identified youth homelessness nearly doubled—not because more young people became homeless, but because the systems finally started talking to each other.

State Comparisons

Arkansas and Mississippi have made the biggest strides through the HUD-funded Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP). Arkansas’s Pulaski County pilot used linked foster care and juvenile justice records to locate youth who had dropped off both systems’ radar. Tennessee is building a statewide data trust connecting education, housing, and child welfare agencies—a model expected to launch in 2026.

Missouri and Oklahoma have robust data on foster youth aging out but weaker information on those experiencing short-term homelessness. Texas, with its vast geography, struggles with coordination among its 11 regional Continuums of Care. Louisiana’s new reporting law (Act 411, 2024) mandates annual counts of youth leaving detention without stable housing, marking a step toward interagency accountability.

What Works

States that succeed treat data collection as outreach, not paperwork. Arkansas’s “Data to Doorway” pilot embeds youth navigators in schools and shelters to verify information and connect youth to services in real time. Mississippi trains caseworkers to record temporary housing—like staying with friends or relatives—as instability, not invisibility. Each of these shifts expands the dataset and the safety net together.

The key insight from 2024–2025: year-round data tracking beats one-night counts. Arkansas and Tennessee are building continuous intake dashboards that pull from education, probation, and community-service providers weekly. Early evaluations show not just better numbers but better coordination—fewer youth slipping through the cracks between foster care exit and shelter entry.

Future Outlook

By 2026, most Mid-South states aim to adopt standardized youth homelessness metrics. Federal agencies are developing new “crosswalk tables” linking HUD, education, and justice data. These shared definitions will allow comparisons across counties and time, transforming how policymakers understand housing instability among court-involved youth.

Data gaps once hid a crisis. The next generation of linked systems could finally illuminate it—and, more importantly, fix it.

Sources

Arkansas Continuum of Care PIT Count Report, 2024.
Mississippi DHS Youth Homelessness Integration Pilot, 2024–2025.
HUD Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Mid-South Evaluation, 2025.
Louisiana Legislative Act 411, Youth Housing Reporting Mandate, 2024.