Mayor: Boston is succeeding in reducing youth homelessness

Boston has experienced a significant decrease in youth homelessness in the three years since receiving $4.7 million in federal funds to combat homelessness among young adults.

There has been a 44% drop in individual youth homelessness, defined as unaccompanied individuals between 18 to 24, compared to the number of young people experiencing homelessness on a single night from 2019 to 2022, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s office said.

During that time, Boston has housed more than 500 youths and added 277 housing units, an increase from just 40 units when the initiative launched in 2019, city officials said.

Wu said the statistics show it’s possible to make Boston “a city for everyone” while noting that a lack of affordable housing remains the city’s “most pressing challenge.”

The plan was launched under former Mayor Martin J. Walsh at a time when the city estimated that about 325 people under 24 were living in shelters or on the street. This month 106 single individual young adults were sleeping in city shelters or outside, the Boston Globe reported.