The growing number of teens and young adults who are without a home in Missouri and three neighboring states will be the focus of a conference tomorrow in Kansas City.

Department of Health and Human Services headquarters

Nancy Thoma, with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says the number of homeless youth in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska increased by 17-percent between 2015 and ’16.

“In January 2016, we found 1,142 people under the age of 25 were homeless in our region,” Thoma says. “And 185 of them were not even sheltered…so, on the street.”

Thoma has helped organize the “Ending Youth Homelessness in the Heartland” conference. She says a study found many of the homeless young people in the region come from families that had been homeless at one point.

“Or they’ve had instances of abuse or their house has had issues with drug addiction or mental health,” Thoma said. “Many of the kids who left their home, 45-percent, said they’d either been kicked out or no one would want to live in the kind of home they lived in.”

National and regional leaders in fighting youth homelessness will spearhead the daylong conference. According to Thoma, it takes many groups working together in a community to help those young people find both employment and safe housing.

“We have some examples where community providers have pulled together advisory committees of youth – they’ve pulled together people from all professional walks of life that need to support young people if they’re going to get through that transition,”

Thoma said. More than 200 people have registered to attend the conference, set to take place Tuesday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center in Kansas City.

Pat Curtis of Radio Iowa wrote this story