Housing Preferences of Young Adults Exiting Foster Care: A Guide to Expanding Housing Resources in Los Angeles
Details
Authors: Kevin Clark, MSW and Brenda A. Tully, PhD
Published: August 2025
Background
During the second half of 2024, Good River Partners set out to understand and document the unique housing needs and desires of transition-age foster youth preparing to or recently exited foster care in Los Angeles.
With generous support from the UniHealth Foundation, more than 200 transition-age foster youth were paid and surveyed about their experiences and preferences in both housing and services. In partnership with Good River Partners, a public benefit firm focused on ending the foster care to homelessness pipeline by financing foster youth housing at scale, the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families assisted in cleaning and analyzing survey responses. The findings offer housing developers, advocates, public officials and other key stakeholders clear insight into what transition-age foster youth say they want and need to secure and maintain stable, high-quality housing.
Purpose
The Housing Preferences Survey was designed with the intention of elevating and integrating youth voice and experience into future investments for transition-age youth housing across the county.
The survey aimed to understand the living arrangement preferences among transition-age youth preparing for independent living, the experiences that youth face while participating in transitional housing support services, and to align future investments in housing and practice with youth need and desire.
Findings
Survey participants overwhelmingly prioritized location over amenities (78% vs. 22%).
The reasons given for locations being desirable include: nearby family, work, school, and job opportunities, calm/nice environment, and welcoming people and communities.
(Please see the one pager and/or brief for additional findings.)
Recommendations
Based on these findings, the report authors recommend five actions that can be taken to support these goals:
1) Create flexibility in transitional housing contracts that allow service providers to place youth in communities that align with their needs and connect them to their social networks, places of work, and educational institutions.
2) Strengthen pathways for youth to transition from Transitional Housing Program Non-Minor Dependent (THP-NMD) or Supervised Independent Living Program (SILP) to Transitional Housing Program-Plus (THP-Plus) or to a Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) Housing Choice Voucher.
3) Expand and increase the number of units available to transition-age foster youth.
4) Execute a similar study to further explore the living and location preferences of youth who are living in a SILP or using the FYI Housing Choice Voucher.
5) Finally, focus on gathering information from sub-populations, such as expecting and parenting youth, LGBTQ+ youth, and an enhanced focus on Black youth, about their housing preferences and needs.
Event Videos
In partnership with Good River Partners, the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families held an event on May 28, 2025, on Housing Preferences of Young Adults Exiting Foster Care at the UCLA James West Alumni Center.
This survey was supported by UniHealth Foundation and Wells Fargo.
