Quick answer: If you’re a young adult ages 17 to 25 in Tennessee who has experienced homelessness or housing instability — or you just want to make a difference — the Youth Action Board (YAAB) is your entry point. YAAB has regional chapters across Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Jackson, the Upper Cumberland, and Northeast Tennessee. You can get involved by attending a local YAAB meeting, applying for membership, joining an advocacy campaign, sharing your story with policymakers, or connecting peers to resources. No experience required — your lived experience is the qualification.
What Is the Youth Action Board and Why Does It Exist?
Before you can get involved, it helps to understand exactly what the Youth Action Board is and what it does. YAAB is a statewide network of young adults with lived experience of homelessness and housing instability who advise local and state leaders across Tennessee’s Continuum of Care regions. Think of it as the bridge between the people who make housing policy and the people who actually have to live with those decisions. Learn more about youth homelessness in Tennessee to see the full scope of the challenge YAAB is working to change.
YAAB Is Run By and For Young People
The Youth Action Board of Tennessee isn’t a program that happens to young people — it’s a network that is driven by them. YAAB is made up of young adults ages 17 to 25 who have lived through homelessness or housing instability. That lived experience isn’t a barrier to joining; it’s the whole point. Members bring firsthand knowledge that no policy expert or service provider can replicate, and that knowledge directly shapes how Tennessee’s Continuum of Care (CoC) regions design programs and allocate resources.
YAAB operates statewide, with regional chapters in Memphis/Shelby County, Nashville/Davidson County, Knoxville/Knox County, Chattanooga/Hamilton County, Jackson and West Tennessee, the Upper Cumberland, and Northeast Tennessee. Each regional board reflects the unique needs and strengths of young adults in that community.
The Problem YAAB Is Solving
Tennessee has tens of thousands of transition-age youth — young people between 17 and 25 — who face housing instability every year. Many are aging out of foster care with little to no safety net. Others are couch-surfing, staying in shelters, or living in cars while trying to finish school or hold down a job. Nationally, about 4.2 million young adults experience homelessness in any given year, and LGBTQ+ youth are disproportionately represented, making up an estimated 40% of the homeless youth population despite being roughly 7% of all youth.
YAAB exists because the people most affected by these systems should have the loudest voice in fixing them. When young adults sit at the policy table, solutions actually fit the real lives of the people they’re meant to serve.
1. Find Your Regional YAAB Chapter
The single most important first step is knowing which regional chapter serves your area. Tennessee is a geographically diverse state — what works for a young adult in Memphis looks very different from what’s needed in rural Northeast Tennessee. YAAB’s regional structure means your involvement is locally grounded and directly relevant to the community you actually live in.
Tennessee's Seven CoC Regions
Tennessee’s Continuum of Care system is divided into regional networks, and YAAB has a presence in each one. Here’s a quick breakdown of where chapters operate:
- Memphis/Shelby County — Serving the greater Memphis metro area and surrounding Shelby County communities
- Nashville/Davidson County — Covering the capital city and the broader Middle Tennessee CoC
- Knoxville/Knox County — East Tennessee’s largest urban center and surrounding region
- Chattanooga/Hamilton County — Southeast Tennessee, including Hamilton County and neighboring areas
- Jackson/West Tennessee — Covering the Jackson metro and the rural West Tennessee CoC
- Upper Cumberland — A multi-county rural region centered around Cookeville
- Northeast Tennessee — Including the Tri-Cities area (Johnson City, Kingsport, Bristol)
Your region determines which meetings you attend, which local leaders you advise, and which community-specific issues you’ll work on.
How to Look Up Your Nearest Chapter
Finding your chapter is straightforward. Visit the local YAABs page on the YAAB Tennessee website to see contact information, meeting schedules, and regional coordinators for each chapter. If you’re unsure which region you fall into — especially if you’re in a rural county that borders multiple CoC boundaries — reach out directly through the contact page and someone will point you in the right direction. No one will turn you away because of geography.
2. Attend a YAAB Meeting as a Guest
One of the lowest-barrier ways to get involved is simply showing up to a meeting. You don’t need to be a member, you don’t need to have all the answers, and you don’t need to have your life fully together. YAAB meetings are designed to be welcoming to first-timers, and many current members started exactly the same way — they walked in as a guest and never wanted to leave.
What Happens at a YAAB Meeting
YAAB meetings are not formal board-room events with suits and parliamentary procedure. They’re peer-led gatherings where young adults talk openly about what’s working, what’s broken, and what needs to change. A typical meeting might include updates on local housing resources, a discussion about a new policy proposal, planning for an upcoming advocacy event, or a guest speaker from a local service provider. Food and transportation support are often available — because YAAB knows that showing up is harder when you’re also managing housing instability.
Most regional chapters meet monthly, either in person or in a hybrid format. Meeting lengths usually run between 60 and 90 minutes. You don’t need to say anything your first time — listening and learning is a completely valid way to start.
How to Get an Invite
Attending as a guest is as simple as reaching out to your regional coordinator or submitting a quick inquiry through the YAAB website. Some chapters post open meeting invitations on social media or through partner organizations like local shelters, transitional housing programs, and workforce development centers. If you’re currently working with a case manager or a CoC partner agency, ask them — they almost certainly know how to connect you. There’s no application, no interview, and no commitment required just to show up and see what YAAB is about.
3. Apply for Official YAAB Membership
If you’ve attended a meeting and feel the energy, the next step is making it official. Becoming a YAAB member gives you a formal seat at the table — the ability to vote on recommendations, represent your peers in policy discussions, and access resources and training that aren’t available to guests. It’s a commitment, but it’s a flexible one that’s designed to work around the real-life demands of being a young adult navigating housing instability.
Who Is Eligible to Join
YAAB membership is open to young adults ages 17 to 25 who have lived experience of homelessness or housing instability. That includes a wide range of experiences: staying in a shelter, couch-surfing with friends or family, living in a car or abandoned building, aging out of foster care with nowhere stable to go, or experiencing any period of housing insecurity. You do not need to be currently homeless to qualify — past experience counts. YAAB also welcomes young adults who are passionate about advocacy even if their housing situation has stabilized; your perspective on what helped you is just as valuable.
What the Application Process Looks Like
The application process varies slightly by region but is generally straightforward. Most chapters ask for basic information about your background, your interest in YAAB, and your availability for meetings and events. There’s no GPA requirement, no employment history check, and no formal interview panel. The process is designed to be accessible — not to screen people out. Visit the YAAB join page to start your application or learn what your regional chapter needs from you. Processing times are typically short, and coordinators will follow up personally.
What Members Get in Return
Membership isn’t just about giving — it’s about growing. YAAB members gain access to leadership training, public speaking opportunities, connections with state and local policymakers, and a peer network of young adults across Tennessee who understand what you’ve been through. Many members report that YAAB gave them their first real experience of being listened to and taken seriously by people in power. Some members have gone on to serve on official CoC committees, testify before the Tennessee General Assembly, and land jobs in the nonprofit and social services sectors — with YAAB experience as a key credential on their résumé.
4. Share Your Story to Drive Policy Change
One of the most direct ways YAAB members create change is by putting their lived experience in front of the people who make decisions. Policymakers, funders, and CoC planners often have limited direct contact with the young adults their programs are supposed to serve. Your story — told on your terms, in your words — is a form of advocacy that no policy brief can replicate.
Why Lived Experience Testimony Is Powerful
Data and statistics can describe a problem, but a real person’s story makes policymakers feel it. When a young adult from Memphis stands up in a CoC planning meeting and explains exactly how a shelter’s 10 PM curfew caused them to lose their job — that’s the kind of testimony that changes rules. YAAB actively creates opportunities for members to share their stories in settings where those stories will have direct impact: CoC planning meetings, state legislative hearings, grant review panels, and community forums.
You get to control your own narrative. YAAB will never pressure you to share more than you’re comfortable with, and members receive coaching and support before any public speaking opportunity so you feel prepared, not exposed.
Storytelling Training and Support
YAAB provides storytelling workshops that help members shape their experiences into clear, compelling narratives for different audiences. You’ll learn how to frame your story for a five-minute public comment slot, a written testimony, a social media post, or a one-on-one conversation with a city council member. These are real professional skills that transfer far beyond YAAB — they’re useful in job interviews, college applications, and community organizing for the rest of your life. No prior public speaking experience is required or expected.
5. Join an Advocacy Campaign or Action Team
YAAB isn’t just about attending meetings — it’s about taking action. Advocacy campaigns give members a concrete way to push for specific changes in policy, funding, and practice. Whether you prefer behind-the-scenes research, face-to-face outreach, or showing up at public hearings, there’s a role for you in YAAB’s advocacy work.
Current Focus Areas for YAAB Advocacy
YAAB’s advocacy work spans several interconnected issues that affect transition-age youth across Tennessee. Current and ongoing focus areas include:
- Expanding transitional housing for youth ages 18-25 in rural and underserved CoC regions
- Raising awareness of youth-specific rights under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, including the right to enroll in school regardless of housing status
- Improving foster care transition planning so young adults aging out at 18 don’t fall off a cliff with no housing plan
- Reducing barriers to employment such as lack of ID, no permanent address, and gaps in work history caused by housing instability
- Mental health access for youth who have experienced trauma related to homelessness
Campaigns are driven by what members identify as the most urgent issues in their region — so your priorities become YAAB’s priorities.
How Action Teams Work
Within each regional chapter, members can join smaller action teams focused on specific issues or projects. An action team might be planning a community resource fair, drafting a letter to a county commissioner, organizing a peer-to-peer outreach effort, or preparing a presentation for a local CoC meeting. Teams are small (usually 3-8 people), task-focused, and time-limited — so you can contribute meaningfully without committing to an open-ended, undefined role. Check out the YAAB advocacy page to see what campaigns are currently active statewide.
6. Connect Your Peers to Resources
Getting involved with YAAB doesn’t always mean standing at a podium or writing policy briefs. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is help a friend find a shelter bed, a job training program, or a free mental health appointment. YAAB equips members to be informal peer navigators in their everyday lives — and that kind of one-to-one connection is how real change spreads through a community.
Peer Navigation: What It Is and Why It Works
Peer navigation means using your own experience and knowledge to help other young adults find the resources they need — housing, food, mental health support, employment, education, and more. Research consistently shows that peer-to-peer outreach is more effective than traditional service delivery for transition-age youth. Young adults are more likely to trust someone who has been through similar experiences than a professional they’ve just met. YAAB members are uniquely positioned to serve as peer navigators in their communities.
This doesn’t mean you need to become a case manager or a counselor. It means knowing what’s available, being willing to share that information, and walking alongside someone while they figure out their next step.
Using the YAAB Resource Hub
YAAB maintains a statewide resource directory that members can use to look up housing, employment, education, and support services by region. The YAAB resources page is a starting point for finding what’s available near you — and for sharing with peers who need help. Members are also encouraged to flag gaps in the resource directory: if a service exists in your community that isn’t listed, let your regional coordinator know so it can be added. Keeping the directory accurate and current is itself a form of advocacy.
Ways to Get Involved With YAAB: At a Glance
Not every form of involvement requires the same level of commitment. Use this table to find the entry point that fits where you are right now.
7. Build Real Skills Through YAAB Leadership Opportunities
YAAB is one of the most direct paths to real leadership experience available to young adults in Tennessee — especially for those who haven’t had access to traditional internships, student government, or professional networks. The skills you build here are transferable, the connections are genuine, and the impact is measurable.
Leadership Training and Professional Development
YAAB invests in its members’ growth. Leadership development programming typically includes workshops on public speaking, community organizing, data literacy, grant writing basics, and how government and CoC systems actually work. These aren’t abstract classroom exercises — they’re practical skills you’ll use immediately in your YAAB work and that will serve you for years afterward. Members who complete YAAB’s leadership track often describe it as the most concrete professional development they’ve ever received.
Some regional chapters also partner with local community colleges and workforce programs to offer members pathways to certifications, internships, or college credit for their YAAB leadership work. Ask your regional coordinator what partnerships are available in your area.
Serving in a YAAB Leadership Role
As you grow within YAAB, you may have the opportunity to take on formal leadership roles: chapter co-chair, action team lead, statewide representative, or delegate to regional CoC planning bodies. These roles come with greater responsibility but also greater impact. YAAB co-chairs, for example, often sit on official CoC committees alongside housing authority staff, nonprofit directors, and government officials — as equals, not as token youth representatives. If formal leadership interests you, talk to your regional coordinator about what roles are open and what the pathway looks like.
Résumé, References, and Real-World Credentials
YAAB membership is a legitimate and impressive credential. You can list it on a résumé as a leadership and advocacy role, and YAAB coordinators can serve as professional references. For young adults who have gaps in their employment history due to housing instability, YAAB provides a concrete, verifiable record of skills, contributions, and community involvement. Several YAAB alumni have gone on to work in housing nonprofits, social services agencies, and government offices — with their YAAB experience as a direct pathway into those careers.
8. Support YAAB as a CoC Partner, Case Manager, or Ally
Not everyone reading this article is a young adult looking to join YAAB directly. Some of you are the adults who work alongside transition-age youth every day — and your support is a critical part of making YAAB work. This section is for you.
How Service Providers Can Amplify YAAB
If you’re a case manager, housing navigator, CoC partner, or service provider reading this — your role in connecting young adults to YAAB is enormous. Research shows that warm handoffs (personal introductions rather than just handing someone a flyer) dramatically increase the likelihood that a young adult will follow through on connecting with a new program. When you tell a client about YAAB, offer to help them find the meeting time, make the introduction to a coordinator, or even attend the first meeting with them if that’s what it takes.
YAAB also welcomes CoC partners as allies in advocacy — not as leaders, but as supporters who amplify youth voices rather than speaking over them. If your organization is working on a policy issue that affects transition-age youth, bringing YAAB to the table early (not as an afterthought) produces better outcomes for everyone.
Referring Young Adults to YAAB
The most effective referrals to YAAB come from trusted adults in a young person’s life: their case manager, their shelter staff, their school liaison, their workforce counselor. If you work with young adults ages 17 to 25 who have lived experience of homelessness or housing instability, you almost certainly know someone who would thrive in YAAB. The referral process is simple: point them to the get involved page or connect them directly with their regional coordinator. You don’t need to do anything more complicated than making the introduction.
What YAAB Involvement Looks Like Across Tennessee: A Regional Snapshot
YAAB’s statewide reach means that involvement looks different depending on where you are in Tennessee. Understanding the regional landscape helps you know what to expect when you connect with your local chapter — and it shows why every region’s voices are essential to the statewide picture.
Urban Chapters: Memphis and Nashville
Memphis and Nashville are Tennessee’s two largest cities and have the highest concentrations of transition-age youth experiencing homelessness. The Memphis/Shelby County YAAB chapter operates in close partnership with the Memphis Continuum of Care and local organizations serving the Mid-South region. Nashville’s chapter works within the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission’s framework and has been involved in advocacy around Nashville’s rapid growth and its impact on affordable housing for young adults. Both chapters meet regularly and have active action teams working on employment barriers and transitional housing expansion.
Mid-Size Cities: Knoxville and Chattanooga
Knoxville and Chattanooga each have distinct youth homelessness landscapes. Knoxville’s YAAB chapter has focused heavily on the intersection of aging out of foster care and housing instability, given Knox County’s significant foster care population. Chattanooga’s chapter has been active in addressing the needs of LGBTQ+ youth, who are disproportionately represented in the homeless youth population. Both chapters have strong relationships with local CoC leads and have participated in Point-in-Time Count planning — the annual census of people experiencing homelessness — to ensure youth are accurately counted.
Rural Regions: Jackson, Upper Cumberland, and Northeast TN
Rural Tennessee presents unique challenges: fewer shelter beds, longer distances to services, less public transportation, and smaller peer networks. YAAB’s chapters in Jackson/West Tennessee, the Upper Cumberland, and Northeast Tennessee are working to address these gaps by building peer networks across wide geographic areas, advocating for rural-specific housing solutions, and connecting young adults to remote and hybrid resources where in-person services don’t exist. If you’re in a rural part of Tennessee and feel like resources don’t exist for you — YAAB is actively working to change that, and your voice in that effort matters most of all.
Your Next Move: How to Get Started With YAAB Today
You’ve read about eight ways to get involved, the regional landscape across Tennessee, and what YAAB membership can do for your leadership and your future. Now it’s time to take the first step. Whether you’re in Memphis, Chattanooga, or a rural county in Northeast Tennessee, there is a YAAB chapter near you and a seat at the table with your name on it.
Three Steps You Can Take Right Now
Getting involved with YAAB doesn’t require a perfect moment or a fully stable life situation. Here are three concrete things you can do today:
- Step 1: Visit the YAAB website. Go to yaabtn.org and explore the resources, regional chapters, and current advocacy work. Get a feel for what YAAB is doing in your part of Tennessee.
- Step 2: Find your regional chapter. Use the local YAABs page to identify your region and find contact information for your regional coordinator. Send a quick message introducing yourself — there’s no wrong way to do it.
- Step 3: Show up. Attend a meeting, even just as a guest. That first step is the hardest one, and it’s also the most important. Everything else follows from showing up.
You Belong at This Table
If you’re a young adult in Tennessee between 17 and 25 who has experienced housing instability — in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Jackson, the Upper Cumberland, or Northeast Tennessee — you have something that no policy expert, no government official, and no nonprofit director can bring to the table: your own experience. YAAB was built on the belief that the people most affected by broken systems are also the most capable of fixing them. That belief is backed up every time a YAAB member’s testimony changes a policy, every time a peer navigator helps a friend find a safe place to sleep, and every time a young adult walks into a CoC meeting and takes their seat as an equal.
You don’t have to have everything figured out to get started. You just have to show up. YAAB will meet you where you are.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to currently be homeless to join the Youth Action Board in Tennessee?
No. YAAB membership is open to young adults ages 17 to 25 who have lived experience of homelessness or housing instability at any point — past or present. If your situation has stabilized, your experience and perspective are still valuable and welcome.
What age do you have to be to join YAAB Tennessee?
YAAB is open to young adults ages 17 to 25. If you’re approaching 25 and worried about aging out of eligibility, reach out to your regional coordinator — some chapters have pathways for members transitioning out of the age range to stay connected as alumni or mentors.
Is there a Youth Action Board near me in Tennessee?
YAAB has regional chapters in Memphis/Shelby County, Nashville/Davidson County, Knoxville/Knox County, Chattanooga/Hamilton County, Jackson/West Tennessee, the Upper Cumberland, and Northeast Tennessee. Visit yaabtn.org/local-yaabs/ to find the chapter closest to you.
What do Youth Action Board members actually do?
YAAB members attend regional meetings, advise local Continuum of Care planners and policymakers, participate in advocacy campaigns, share their lived experience in public forums, connect peers to resources, and build leadership skills through training and hands-on projects. Involvement is flexible and can be scaled to fit your schedule.
Can I join YAAB if I'm aging out of foster care?
Absolutely. Young adults aging out of foster care are a core part of the population YAAB serves and represents. Your experience navigating the foster care system and the transition to adulthood is exactly the kind of lived knowledge that makes YAAB’s advocacy stronger.
How do I contact the Youth Action Board of Tennessee?
You can reach YAAB through the contact form at yaabtn.org/contact/ or by visiting yaabtn.org/local-yaabs/ to find your regional chapter’s coordinator directly. You can also start by visiting yaabtn.org/get-involved/ for an overview of how to connect.
