Why Youth Voices Belong in Advocacy
A Seat at the Table
On the week of her 25th birthday, Joseline arrived in Washington, D.C., preparing to advocate for her community at the National Alliance to End Youth Homelessness conference.
One day after arriving, she worked with Noelle Stanfield, SPY’s Chief Program Officer to prepare to speak with Senate and Congressional offices about the issue of youth homelessness. They attended the Systems Coordination meeting, meeting with other providers and advocates to go through their needs, thoughts, and talking points before presenting to staff on Capitol Hill, ensuring the needs of the young people they represent were relayed clearly.
“It was really cool to meet so many people from different organizations. I got to meet so many people from different parts of the country.” - Joseline, Youth Advocate
Speaking From Experience
Joseline spoke to one of Congresswoman Maxine Water’s representatives about housing vouchers.
“It’s essential that we protect housing vouchers for youth. I spoke about my experience – about how being a single parent is already hard, and that taking away something as essential as a Section 8 voucher would create extreme hardships for families like mine.
That voucher is just a piece of paper, but it helped me achieve so much. I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish as much as I have if it wasn’t for that housing voucher.”
Later, after Joseline left the room, the representative told her how much she appreciated her for speaking up. She'd been taking notes the entire time. She made Joseline feel heard.
Comparing Notes With Advocates From Other States
Joseline also sat in on a youth representative panel, listening to advocates talk about how to build long-term careers in this field. A lot of the people there were from states with far fewer resources than Los Angeles has, and they were asking the youth how LA’s systems worked.
“It was eye-opening. It's easy to feel like LA isn't doing enough. But hearing how different, and how much harder this work is in other parts of the country reminded me that we are making progress here. It could be so much worse, and in a lot of places, it is.”
A Note From Joseline:
“At the panel, some of the people in the room had lived experience like me. Others worked in program management and were there to listen, to take what we said and build it into how their programs actually run. We talked about how differently funding and support show up depending on which state you're in.
Sometimes it feels like we're not doing much, because our organization is small, and some days it can feel like you're the only one carrying this. But when you're in a room full of people working toward the same goal, you see the real size of the impact. There are more of us than there are of the people who don't support us, or who make funding harder to access. I loved that unity.
That's the reason it matters so much that youth from SPY, and from organizations like ours, are the ones in these rooms speaking. It goes to the heart of what we believe: young people with lived experience have to have a seat at this table, because no one understands these systems the way we do. No one else has lived on the inside of them.
When we explain what we've actually experienced to the people who navigate and manage these programs, we help them build something better. People without lived experience can usually only see the surface. Those of us who've lived it can tell you what's underneath.”
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