Assistance program
Basic Center Grant
$471.7 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Administration for Children and Families, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 93.623
- What it does
- The purpose of the Basic Center Program is to establish or strengthen the capacity of community-based public and private agencies to address the immediate needs of runaway and homeless youth under the age of 18 and their families. Emergency shelter and supportive services must be delivered outside of the law enforcement, child welfare, mental health, and juvenile justice systems. The goals and objectives of the Basic Center Program are to: 1) provide outreach, crisis intervention and aftercare; 2) reunite youth with their families, if deemed safe, and encourage the resolution of intra-family problems through counseling and other services; 3) strengthen family relationships and encourage stable living conditions for youth; and 4) help youth decide on constructive courses of action. Additional programs funded under this listing include the National Communication System for Runaway and Homeless Youth Program, which is a dedicated toll-free, U.S. national communication system that provides information, referral services, crisis intervention, prevention approaches, and other supportive services to vulnerable, at-risk, and runaway and homeless youth and their families or legal guardians. And, the Runaway Homeless Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center (RHYTTAC), which provides direct training and technical assistance to existing and potential RHY grant recipients and subrecipients to enhance their efforts to successfully implement projects supported by FYSB grant funds.
- Who benefits
- Runaway and homeless youth and their families are the beneficiaries. Services can be provided to youth under the age of 18.
- Who applies
- Public and nonprofit entities and combinations of such entities are eligible to apply unless they are part of the juvenile justice system. For profit organizations are not eligible. Private institutions of higher education must be non-profit entities. In selecting applications for award, ACF shall give priority to eligible applicants who have demonstrated experience in providing services to runaway and homeless youth. Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible. Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible to receive awards.
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments