Invisible and Underserved: How Massachusetts Fails Pregnant and Parenting Youth Experiencing Homelessness
Falling Through the Cracks
In Massachusetts, pregnant and parenting teens experiencing homelessness continue to fall through the cracks of a system designed without their needs in mind. Despite some legal protections, individuals at the intersection of youth homelessness and pregnancy remain dangerously underserved. Shelters routinely turn away pregnant youth, services often require parental consent, and vital resources like prenatal care and Women, Infant, Children nutrition assistance (WIC) remain inaccessible due to bureaucratic and legal hurdles.
According to the 2024 Massachusetts Youth Count, 9% of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness reported being pregnant or parenting at the time of the survey. Many of these young people are navigating pregnancy without consistent shelter, transportation, or access to healthcare. Policy blind spots exacerbate these challenges by overlooking the complex realities of young parents.
One of the most urgent issues is housing. Youth-specific shelters in Massachusetts often exclude pregnant teens, either due to their policies or lack of infrastructure. Others require parental consent to admit minors—an impossible requirement for unaccompanied youth who have left unsafe or unsupportive home environments. The pending Act Allowing Certain Minors to Consent to Supportive Services (H.290/S.132) would address this gap by allowing unaccompanied minors ages 15-18 to consent to supportive services on their own. Pregnant teens sometimes hide their pregnancies to stay in a shelter or choose between disclosing and getting turned away.
Barriers to Care
MA Appleseed’s research shows that even shelters accepting young parents often fail to provide trauma-informed, youth-centered support to meet their needs. Youth experiencing homelessness usually lack access to prenatal care, facing major barriers that keep them from getting essential services. Transportation poses a significant obstacle, especially in rural or transit-inaccessible areas. Many teens do not know where to go or how to find help, while others fear judgment or institutional involvement because of past negative experiences with these systems. When providers lack training in trauma-informed or adolescent-centered care, they further alienate young people and discourage them from seeking the support they need.
Under Massachusetts law and Department of Public Health guidelines, minors may consent to their prenatal care without a parent’s permission. Although Massachusetts law allows minors to consent to their own prenatal care, legal access does not equal real-world accessibility. In practice, many pregnant and parenting teens continue to face overwhelming barriers — including lack of transportation, personal identification, financial stability, or the support of a trusted adult. These gaps between policy and lived experience leave at-risk youth navigating critical healthcare needs alone, often delaying or forgoing care entirely.
For pregnant and parenting youth experiencing homelessness, survival often depends on accessing benefits like WIC, SNAP, or MassHealth. But obtaining those benefits usually requires a government-issued ID—a document that many youth experiencing homelessness cannot access due to cost, lack of documentation, or the need for parental involvement. The pending Everyone Needs ID bill—An Act to Provide Identification to Youth and Adults Experiencing Homelessness (H.3750/S.2399)—would help by removing cost barriers and allowing service providers to verify residency. According to the 2024 Youth Count, 24% of young people said not having an ID prevented them from receiving nutrition or cash assistance. Another 19% said it blocked access to health services.
Without this support, young people face increased instability. Hunger, unmanaged health conditions, and lack of prenatal care can escalate the risk of poor birth outcomes and continue the cycles of homelessness.
Legislative Solutions on the Table
MA Appleseed supports several legislative initiatives that would significantly improve conditions for pregnant and parenting youth experiencing homelessness:
- Act Allowing Certain Minors to Consent to Supportive Services (H.290/S.132): This bill would allow mature minors ages 15–18 experiencing homelessness to consent to services such as shelter, case management, and counseling, without requiring parental consent.
- An Act to Provide Identification to Youth and Adults Experiencing Homelessness (H.3750/S.2399) This bill would waive the $25 fee and other documentation requirements for unaccompanied homeless youth to obtain a Massachusetts ID.
A Call to Action
Pregnant and parenting youth navigate some of the most vulnerable stages of life with the fewest protections. Massachusetts has an opportunity—and an obligation—to build systems that do not punish young people for surviving. That starts with housing access, transportation, trauma-informed care, and removing bureaucratic barriers that treat young parents as invisible.
Until we center the needs of young parents in our policy and practice, we will continue to see the same cycle of homelessness, poverty, and poor health outcomes play out. At MA Appleseed, we believe that every young person deserves safety, dignity, and the opportunity to provide support, not shame.
