ACF Can Improve Services to Homeless Youth by Strengthening Grant Recipients’ Compliance With Transitional Living Program Requirements

Why OIG Did This Audit

• Youth affected by homelessness are vulnerable to exploitation and victimization, have high rates of involvement in the juvenile justice system, and are more likely to engage in substance use.
• The Transitional Living Program (TLP), administered by ACF, awards grants to public and private organizations (grant recipients) to provide temporary living arrangements and services to homeless youth aged 16 to 21.
• In Federal fiscal year 2022, ACF awarded over $53 million to TLP grant recipients to help youth transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency. We conducted this audit to determine whether TLP grant recipients provided services to homeless youth in accordance with Federal requirements.

What OIG Found

The 25 TLP grant recipients in our sample did not provide or did not document that they provided all required services in accordance with Federal requirements for 107 of the 123 homeless youth in our sample.

• On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that TLP grant recipients did not provide or did not document that they provided all required transitional living services to 3,538, or 88 percent, of homeless youth in the TLP.
• TLP grant recipients that provided maternity related services did not create a separate case file for the child or infant for 12 of 21 homeless youth that were parents.

What OIG Recommends

We made four recommendations to ACF to create guidance and provide technical assistance for TLP grant recipients, including creating guidance and technical assistance for documenting required services in homeless youth case files. The full recommendations are in the report.

ACF concurred with all four recommendations.

---