Gov. Greg Gianforte joined U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner at Montana State University in Bozeman Thursday for a roundtable discussion focused on youth who are aging out of the foster care system — a population that faces some of the steepest odds of housing instability and homelessness of any group in the country.
The roundtable brought together state and federal officials to examine the gaps young people encounter when they turn 18 and lose access to foster care services — often with no family safety net, limited savings, and no established credit history. Montana, like most states, has struggled to build a coherent system of transitional support for this population, and the Bozeman meeting was framed as an opportunity to identify where federal housing resources could be better directed.
HUD's involvement signals potential federal funding or policy attention toward Montana's transitional housing programs, though no specific commitments were announced from Thursday's session. For Helena, which has its own population of foster youth aging out of the system and limited transitional housing inventory, any shift in federal resources toward this issue would have direct local implications.
The governor's office did not release a formal policy announcement following the roundtable, but the meeting is likely to inform future budget and program discussions at the state level.