Gabi Huffman recalled being near a breaking point.
After leaving what she called a “really bad relationship,” she was living in a church basement shelter with her daughter, who was three months old at the time. Huffman, then 21, recalled having anxiety and panic attacks over her life’s instability that were so severe she thought about going to a mental hospital.
But in February 2023, the monthly checks started coming in.
Huffman was selected to receive $1,000 a month as part of a state program experimenting with giving homeless youths cash payments for two years with no strings attached.
For Huffman, it was a significant leg up. She used the money to buy insurance and gas for her ‘97 Infinity sedan. It meant she could buy Q-tips, hair conditioner and clothes for work. She even bought a laptop for classes at Central Oregon Community College.
“Things are better than ever,” said Huffman, who recently moved with her daughter into a duplex with a backyard.
Oregon’s program is among a handful of state and local initiatives testing the idea that consistent and unconditional payments to homeless youths will get them housed faster than long-standing services that often don’t consider the complexity of their lives.
So far, Oregon’s pilot program, called “Direct Cash Transfer,” and a similar initiative in New York City, have shown signs that the cash helped youths, ages 18 to 24, move out of shelters. Of the 117 youths, including Huffman, who completed Oregon’s two-year pilot program, 91% reported being in stable housing when its first phase ended in January.
But how much long-term difference the cash will make for homeless youths, many of whom exited foster care and have little experience managing money, is unsettled. Researchers say it’s unclear how much young people see their housing situations improve, if the money will bring lasting changes to their lives and if cash payments are enough.
Sarah Berger Gonzalez, a policy fellow at Chicago-based think tank Chapin Hall, said studying these programs is complicated by the pain and chaos homeless youths experience as they’re coming of age.
“It’s adulting while also processing really deep trauma from being unhoused and not feeling safe,” she said.
The Oregon Department of Human Services is evaluating the first phase of its direct cash pilot program to see what difference the cash made for the homeless youths. The department recently launched the second phase.
The results could be consequential for the state. The number of people experiencing homelessness here rose to 22,875 — the eighth-largest number of any state — according to the results of last year’s federally mandated point-in-time count.
Of those, 1,315 were youths between 18 and 24. That’s about the same number as Texas, which has a population seven times that of Oregon.
‘Layering on inequalities’
That the government should directly give citizens money, often called a “universal basic income,” has been a perennial idea in the United States. Sometimes, the concept is used while avoiding the name, as when the federal government gave “stimulus checks” to citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. In other efforts, like when the city of Stockton, California, experimented with the idea in 2019, researchers found cash improved recipients’ employment prospects and well-being.
Giving cash coupled with supportive services to homeless youth was first tested in New York City in 2022. That was sparked after research by Chapin Hall found that donations of food and clothing, case management, as well as shelters and transitional housing alone were not meeting the needs of this group of young people.
Researchers also focused on how many homeless youths lack a source of support often available to young people who are housed: parents able to help cover their living expenses in early adulthood. A 2020 Merrill Lynch study, referenced by Chapin Hall, found that parents serve as a “family bank” to their adult children, giving them $500 billion annually for education, cell phones, groceries and other expenses. White parents were more likely to help.
“You are layering on inequalities,” Berger Gonzalez said.
Direct cash payments to homeless youths were designed to be a stand-in for parental financial support as they found their footing with education, jobs and housing, she said. The cash would be coupled with optional program managers, mentors and financial counseling intended to substitute for parental advice, she said.
With funding from private foundations, New York City in March 2022 launched its Trust Youth Initiative that made monthly payments of $1,100 to 78 homeless youths over the course of two years.
After the program concluded, youths who received the payments were less likely to have experienced homelessness than those who received regular services, according to a Chapin Hill study. Researchers found that 30 months after the program began, 8% of youths who participated reported being homeless at least one night in the last 30 days compared to 25% of those who didn’t.
Researchers also found young people who received the cash had better access to food.
However, six months after the payments stopped, they reported nearly the same level of food insecurity as before the program. Additionally, researchers concluded that the program “did not appear to have had an impact” on employment, education or other long-term outcomes.
Berger Gonzalez said the study had a small sample size and is far from conclusive on the effectiveness of direct cash programs, which she said need more long-term study. She pointed out that the program played out in an expensive city with a right-to-shelter law, at a time when there was an increase in emergency housing vouchers issued during the COVID-19 pandemic.
San Francisco, Minnesota and Oregon have since launched similar programs.
Direct payments were ‘the glue’
Before enrolling in Oregon’s direct cash program, Huffman said she couldn’t afford car insurance and described each time getting behind the wheel as the “luck of the draw.”
The program included a one-time payment of $3,000 on top of the monthly $1,000. Huffman said she used the money to buy six months of car insurance and cover the cost of cremation for her father, who had recently died.
She was able to travel to Nevada to reconnect with family. She had money for windshield wipers and other car parts. She took parenting classes and joined a gym, which she said helped with her mental health. Now, she’s working towards buying a home and hopes to one day open a transitional shelter for adolescents and single parents experiencing homelessness.
“I don’t think I would have been able to maintain my life if I didn’t get the (direct cash transfer),” Huffman said. “It was the glue to the pieces I was picking up.”
The program collaborated with three nonprofit organizations that work with homeless youths, including central Oregon-based J Bar J Youth Services. Huffman said J Bar J helped her secure a housing voucher and move out of a shelter and into her own apartment with her daughter. She later worked in housekeeping, landscaping, farm work, snow removal and other jobs.
Sofie Fashana, a researcher and policy entrepreneur with progressive think tank Next100, said other programs that seek to address youth homelessness exclude people who don’t check exactly the right boxes.
“These systems we have are so limiting,” she said. “They always weigh people’s trauma against another person. And we don’t live in a world where one size fits all that.”
What does ‘housing stability’ mean?
Oregon launched the first phase of its pilot program in February 2023 after working with Point Source Youth, a national research and advocacy group focused on homeless youths.
Fashana was working with Point Source Youth and participated in a focus group during the pandemic when Oregon was trying to respond to a rise in youth homelessness. She said the focus group included community organizations, state leaders and young people experiencing homelessness. The youths made clear that what they needed most was flexible cash, she said.
The first phase of the program, which had a budget of $5.1 million, is still being evaluated for what difference it made for youths’ financial status, access to resources and well-being. But it appears to have been successful in getting recipients into housing, with roughly nine out of 10 reporting they were stably housed when the payments stopped.
The Oregon Department of Human Services allowed youths to describe the stability of their housing situation from their perspective, which aligned with the initiative’s focus on autonomy, program manager Matthew Rasmussen said in an emailed statement.
But Fashana said the program does not have a clear definition of what housing stability means and that nonprofits working with youths experiencing homelessness should develop a common understanding. She said case managers might consider someone stably housed one week because they’re sleeping on a friend’s couch, but are considered homeless if it’s no longer available.
Huffman said she cried tears of joy when she moved from the shelter into her apartment. But she said she was “quickly crushed by the environment.” She recalled being assaulted by teenage girls, seeing people high on drugs and the police being there every day.
There were also “really great experiences” at the apartment, she said. There was the old lady downstairs who taught her how to cook steak and another neighbor who showed her how to separate her laundry by colors.
“At the end of the day, I’m thankful for the experiences,” Huffman said. “I feel very appreciative for the life that I’m living now.”
Cash is not enough
The Oregon Department of Human Services launched the second phase of its pilot program in September with a budget of $5 million that included funding from from the Legislature and the Oregon Community Foundation, according to department spokesman Jake Sunderland.
The 120 youths currently enrolled in the two-year program will again be paired with nonprofits who will provide services and support with managing the money. Fashana said it is clear the support piece is key to the success of cash payment programs for homeless youth.
Kim Wheeler, executive director of one of those nonprofits, AntFarm Youth Services, said she’s already seen some success in the second phase, with 10 youths getting into housing, and others starting college or getting their drivers’ licenses.
Based in Sandy, AntFarm holds classes on financial literacy or other life skills for youths and checks in with them monthly, Wheeler said. Staff emphasize to young people that the money is for their own success and not for friends or family, she said.
While most youths are trying to use the program to change their life trajectory, she said it’s still a challenge to get them to be responsible with the money. Youths in the program are surprised when they create budgets, realizing how much lattes add up, she said. But in the end, the choices are theirs alone.
“They don’t have to do anything they don’t want to,” Wheeler said. “They can just take the money.”
Stephanie Alvstad, executive director of J Bar J — which is involved in both phases of the pilot — said heavy case management has meant better results in education, employment and housing.
Youths in the first phase of the pilot used the money in a variety of ways, she said. Some saved the money or used it to supplement their incomes. One recipient wanted to be out of the shelter for a night and spent the money on a hotel.
“I don’t know if it’s proven yet,” she said of the pilot. “I know for our program we are doing the best we can.”
Berger Gonzalez, the researcher, said “cash alone” is not going to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. She said many other factors can influence someone’s trajectory, no matter how much money they have.
Fashana said she held a roundtable discussion last year with recipients of the program, advocates and others. She said a key message from the discussion was that community and guidance were needed in addition to cash.
“Cash is a tool. It’s not a solution,” she said. “But it’s huge for moving in the right direction.”
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This article appears in November 19, 2025.