Homeless youth: Statewide Office of the Homeless Youth Advocate.

Under existing law, several state agencies have prescribed responsibilities relating to homeless youth. Existing law requires the California Emergency Management Agency to administer a program to provide shelter and other services to runaway and nonrunaway youth and their families. This bill would establish the Statewide Office of the Homeless Youth Advocate in the California Health and Human Services Agency. This bill would require the office, among other things, to provide information and assistance to reduce the provision of overlapping services to, identify obstacles to the provision of services to, make recommendations to remove those obstacles and improve the quality of services provided to, and update and disseminate information received from service providers relating to services available for, homeless youth.