About

LA Emissary is a youth-led initiative working to prevent and end youth homelessness in Los Angeles County. We center young people with lived experience of homelessness and system involvement as co-decision makers in shaping funding priorities, policies, and practices across the homeless response system.

Through leadership development, youth-led governance, and cross-sector collaboration, LA Emissary ensures that young people are not just consulted, but trusted with real power to redesign systems that impact their lives.

  • We envision a Los Angeles where every young person has a safe place to call home and the power to shape their own future.

    Youth homelessness is not inevitable. It is the result of systems that exclude young people from decisions made about them. LA Emissary exists to shift that paradigm by transforming how decisions are made, who holds power, and whose expertise is valued.

    By supporting local organizing, advancing countywide systems change, and leading youth-led grantmaking, we are working to redesign the youth homeless response system so it is built with young people, not for them.

  • LA Emissary is a youth-led network of young people, partners, and institutions committed to ending youth homelessness in Los Angeles County.

    We uplift and center the expertise of young people with lived experience of homelessness, foster care, and system involvement across our staff, SPA teams, and leadership tables. Youth are positioned as co-decision makers in shaping policies, funding strategies, and system practices at every level of our work.

    Our role is to build the structures, skills, and relationships that allow youth leadership to meaningfully influence systems and to hold those systems accountable to the communities they serve.

    Our work is made possible with the support of:

    • Conrad N. Hilton Foundation 

    • Cedars-Sinai

    • Young Adult Forward Fund 

    • Weingart Foundation 

    • Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation 

    • LA County Department of Homeless Services and Housing 

Our Team