Amid some troubling statistics about the lives of former foster children, PAUL CHAVEZ learns about a program that's trying to help teens adjust to independent life.
PASADENA, Calif.
Deshawndray Miles, 18, a participant in the "Youth Moving On" program. (AP Photo/Ryan Pearson)
John M. Hitchcock, executive director of Hillsides, stands outside the complex. (AP Photo/Ryan Pearson)
Jacqueline Jacobs Caster, founder of the Everychild Foundation. (AP Photo/Ryan Pearson)
The statistics for young adults who are "aged out" of the foster care system when they turn 18 are staggering, and troubling.
Nationwide, about 20,000 youths are forced to leave the foster care system each year because of their age, and most are released into independent life with little or no support. National surveys show that 25 percent of them are homeless within a year.
Other studies show that emancipated foster youths face higher rates of unemployment, with approximately 51 percent jobless within four years of emancipation. About 40 percent will be incarcerated or on welfare in the same time period, and less than 5 percent ever graduate from college.
Hillsides, a nonprofit treatment center founded in 1913 for at-risk youths, is trying to turn some of those statistics around with a program that provides a two-year bridge of support for emancipated foster youths.
BRIDGING THE GAP
With the help of a $715,000 grant from the Everychild Foundation, the Hillsides board purchased a 49-unit gated apartment complex in a quiet part of Pasadena to provide housing for people aged out of the foster system, said John Hitchcock, Hillsides' executive director.
The complex, which is now partly occupied and still undergoing renovations, includes 10 one-bedroom units that will be used as housing for 20 emancipated foster youths. Another unit has been reserved for a resident adviser, and 38 studio apartments will be rented to the general public at market rates -- currently $950 a month -- to help create income to sustain the program.
The program, called "Youth Moving On," provides the emancipated foster youths with advisers who help monitor their progress toward independent living, and therapy sessions to help keep them on track. Just as importantly, it offers them a comfortable home: a furnished apartments with couches, desks, chairs, beds, dressers, a kitchen table and a refrigerator.
Rent is free for the first 30 days, goes up to $200, and then is increased by $50 increments to a maximum of $400 a month. Each month rent is paid on-time, $50 is set aside in an account for that resident, to be paid out when he graduates from the program.
"A BLESSING"
In many ways, Deshawndray Miles, 18, is your typical teenager.
She proudly displays her prom photo on her coffee table, decorates her bedroom with images of Bugs Bunny and holds down a part-time job at a county courthouse in Pasadena.
But Miles traveled a difficult road to get to this point. From the age of 8, she was bounced from home to home after her mother's drug use prompted a court to place her in the foster care system. She's been a member of the "Youth Moving On" program since September 2005.
Miles, whose friendly personality and big smile belie her past troubles, said the program works because the advisers and mentors give her support without "babying" her.
"I think Hillsides is a blessing to a lot of kids that get accepted," she said.
ETHICAL AND FISCAL SENSE
The Everychild Foundation, which helped get "Youth Moving On" off the ground, is a group of women who each donate $5,000 a year to a single cause dedicated to relieving the suffering of children. The group chose the Hillsides program for its 2004 grant.
"Placing emancipated foster youth in these programs not only makes sense ethically, but it makes great sense fiscally," said Jacqueline Jacobs Caster, who started up the foundation.
Fiscally?
Caster explains that about 70 percent of all the inmates in California's prison system have been in the foster care system at some point in their lives, and the cost of a program like "Youth Moving On" is about $20,000 per year per young adult -- compared with incarceration costs of about $115,000 a year in a state prison.
"We're not talking about an investment in society that will pay off 15 to 20 years from now," Caster said. "These are dollars that we will save in our state coffers this year by putting children in these programs. It's an immediate savings."
CASE STUDY: CALIFORNIA
In California, more than 4,000 children become emancipated from foster care each year, and the state has the most youths leaving the foster care system, said Amy Lemley, policy director of the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes.
Advocates have announced their support for a California state Senate bill that would increase transitional housing assistance for former foster youths. The bill would remove the burden from counties that currently must cover 60 percent of costs by making it a fully funded state program.
Lemley said only a few counties offer such a program, and less than 5 percent of eligible former foster youths participate in it.
The bottom line is that the foster care system needs to adjust to current realities, Lemley said, citing studies showing that parents take care of their children well into their 20s, on average. She also noted that Illinois and New York let young people stay in foster care until they're 21.
"We're kind of at a juncture where we need to make foster care look more like the average family that cares for their children to about age 26," Lemley said. "That's the more common American experience. Most people are not even close to being able to live independently at age 18."
___
Paul Chavez is an asap reporter based in Los Angeles.
___
Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .
©2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
