Help for Homeless Youth

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, over 3.5 million young adults and roughly 700,000 young people experience homelessness in our country. We can't keep doing the same thing over and over again. With so many of our youth experiencing homelessness, we worked on a bill together called the Youth Homelessness Guaranteed Income Pilot Program Act.

This bill would launch a pilot program providing direct cash assistance to those experiencing homelessness in the amount of $1,400, or adjusted fair market rent, for 36 months, and then study the effects of the program on housing and health outcomes.

This week, we received an email from someone that said: When I was 17, I was convinced to leave home and family to go live in Texas. I had $400 in my bank account and a car that broke down every month. This would have helped me tremendously.

I think, again, it is important as we come together to try to end the homelessness crisis in our country that we listen to the people being directly impacted.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this pilot program while respecting the dignity of unhoused young people by cosponsoring the bill.

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