There is a strong tradition, documented in research and evidenced in common practice, which reinforces the fact that government is not very effective at integrating its policies, programs and funding across agency jurisdictional lines. This is overwhelmingly evident in public sector attempts to figuring out the best practices for working with the frequently overlapping populations of aging-out foster care youth, homeless young adults, and youth involved with the juvenile justice system.

In the world of youth development (responsive to educational, employment, housing and other social service issues), these populations present similar challenges, demand common responses, and all-too-often represent the several stages that young adults move through on their path to success or failure. Not all disconnected young adults fall into one or more of these populations, but the number is certainly significant. And yet we tend to compartmentalize issues and people, to think in categorical or isolated "silo" terms.

The policy rhetoric recognizes this dilemma, but practice does not reflect the general understanding among people who work in this field. Committees, task forces, "cabinets" of public and private officials, have been set up to signify progress, but progress is slow-coming or non-existent on any real dimension. Fiscal resources still do not flow across artificial agency boundaries; information regarding these young people is segmented and incomplete; rules, regulations, protocols represent the interests of the invested public bodies and not the benefit of the affected populations. And some actions are simply misguided, e.g. drawing false distinctions between best practices or methods for addressing complex needs, or relying on the wrong non-profit or for-profit organizations simply because of unproductive traditions.

Nothing I've said is new or profound. We all know how counter-productive the current system is set up to be. But there are immediate actions which can be taken. First, high level representatives from the City and State agencies involved with these overlapping populations should be locked in a room (or a conference space) with a few representatives from the non-profit community and forced to resolve a few basic operational questions (e.g. definitions of who a "homeless" youth is, who has responsibility for funding a person moving from one category to the next) before they are let out. Second, a model for integrated funding should be developed and agreed upon (similar to the "Master Contract" utilized at The Door for the past twenty years, combining funding from several State agencies into one package). Third, young adults should be allowed to "shop" for the services they need across a number of qualified private organizations able and willing to respond to their issues (and made possible by the flexible funding created under the second suggestion).

These suggestions are just to prompt the much needed "negotiation" that must take place so that the rhetoric can end and action begin. Competition to represent or (minimally) pay for these young adults should end. This may actually be a resolvable social challenge.