1Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

Foster Care and Homelessness, a Modern Day Issue

Jeffery W. Belford

Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College

2Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

Abstract

Over 250,000 children in the United States are placed into foster care annually. These kids from

all races and economic backgrounds have had the misfortune of an unstable, abusive or traumatic

living situation. They have been made wards of the state, removed from their homes and put into

placement with a foster family or group home. The majority of these kids will be returned to

their families, the rest will remain in the system. Every year, more than twenty thousand of these

children will have their twenty -first birthday and “age out” of the foster care system. This high-

risk group forms a considerable portion of the homeless people living on the streets of New York

City. Without the availability and utilization of necessary support services, these

underprivileged youth have nearly no chance at turning their situation around by completing

school, finding jobs and reintegrating into healthy society. This article aims to examine how this

problem has originated, the extent to which it is a growing national concern and the steps that

must be taken in order to enact a feasible solution to help these kids who have fallen into this

dire living situation through no fault of their own.

3Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

Introduction

New York City has the second largest population of children living in foster care in the

United States (Hilton Foundation, 2015). There are more than 28,000 children currently under

the care of the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS. These young people have

had difficult circumstances to cope with during their childhood years. Many of them have been

victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse (Winerip, 2013). Others have been abandoned or

neglected by their birth families. Regardless of the specific circumstances of their turbulent and

tumultuous pasts, these children are placed into foster care as a result of an alleged mistreatment

from or illegal acts committed by delinquent parents and a subsequent social services

intervention.

Almost without exception, these kids have not had the benefit of a safe, loving and

nurturing environment. Then, they are thrown into a system that leaves them powerless and

lacking a voice about where they will live, with whom and for how long. The quality of life

experiences that these kids have had often stunts them emotionally and lowers their self-esteem

(Baccaglini 2011). It also leaves them questioning the unclear expectations of this new system

they must live under, which is designed to protect their best interests during the vulnerable,

formative time of their adolescence. Aging out of the foster care system, more often than not,

releases unprepared kids into society without the resources and life experiences they will need to

successfully support themselves as independent adults.

There are three main troublesome challenges for these newly aged-out young people to

overcome: housing, employment and education. These are interconnected, insofar as they

cannot find a place to live without a job and they cannot find a job without a proper educational

background. While under the care of the foster system, the conditions are usually less-than-ideal

4Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

to prepare these young adults to meet these challenges (Hilliard, 2014). There is a distinct lack

of citywide governing focus on foster youth.

There is a plethora of additional obstacles for the young people who have aged out of the

foster care system (Bosman, 2009). Some of the many obstacles they are faced with include:

inadequate access to medical, dental and mental health insurance coverage, drug and alcohol

abuse, poverty and needing welfare benefits, lack of proper identification and legal

documentation, unplanned pregnancies, separation from siblings and involvement with the

judicial court system (ACS, 2001).

Discussion

The transition to adulthood and independence is difficult for these children. The foster

care agencies have a responsibility to help prepare these kids and improve their quality of life

within the New York community. There are many agencies poised to help, but because of their

disadvantaged upbringing, most of these youngsters will need more care and for a longer period

of time than other average children who have not been in the foster system (Baccaglini, 2011).

Funding these critical services will take a toll on the government budget and the cost will be

passed along to taxpayers. There is no free ride on the path towards adulthood.

It is a complex sociological issue. Progress is being made, but the system is flawed in

serious fundamental ways and filled with shortcomings, which must be addressed if we can hope

to help each group of yearly graduates from the foster care program. We need to consider the

ways the system is failing these kids, the agencies that are involved with working to solve the

5Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

problems and the potential solutions that can be utilized in order to avoid having more young

adults become homeless after aging out of placement.

The only reason we are even able to evaluate the problem as well as we currently can

today is thanks to the recent legislation that has been written to have social services agencies,

like ACS, collect, record and analyze data about the kids who have aged out and those who are

preparing to do so, the programs they are participating in and the outcomes of this participation

(Hartman, 2013). Methods of effectively tracking the kids and the agencies’ involvement with

them have been cropping up all over the government and private sectors in recent years.

A 2007 study conducted by an advocacy group known as the Empire State Coalition of

Youth and Family Services concluded that there were 3,800 homeless kids sleeping on the streets

of New York City on any given night (Bosman, 2009) and that recent budget cuts had had a

negative impact on the outreach program’s ability to help these kids make a successful transition

out of foster care. It also showed that a young adult’s participation in the foster care system had

an unfavorable effect on their ability to function appropriately as a useful member of the society.

Some of these kids end up homeless by choice. As odd as that may seem, when they find

themselves on their own as adults whom no longer must obey the rules of the foster system, they

are not eager to have any continued involvement with social service agencies. Some newly

emancipated kids will choose to couch surf, popping around from one friend’s home to the next.

They may sleep on the subway or in hospital waiting rooms (nytimes.com, 2000). In their

curiously skewed vision of their place in the world, this situation is preferable to what they

perceive as their available alternatives.

6Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

In 2008, states were ordered to keep track of these statistics by the year 2010.

Government wanted to find out whether or not progress was being made towards eliminating the

unpreparedness that leads to homelessness for these post-foster care individuals. Organizations

such as the Government Accountability Office and the National Youth in Transition Database

started looking at outcomes including “educational attainment, employment, avoidance of

dependency, homelessness, non-marital childbirth, high-risk behaviors and incarceration”

(Hartman, 2013).

A 2011 report entitled ‘Fostering Careers’ was prepared by a Manhattan-based, non-

partisan think tank for social issues known as the Center for Urban Futures (Hilliard, 2014). This

report was the catalyst for beginning the CUF’s involvement with working to improve the plight

of the city’s foster children. The facts that were uncovered during the research for the report

were disheartening, and the conclusion reached was that the foster care system was a fragmented

social support which had never fully distinguished between meeting the needs of children versus

those of young adults (Hilliard, 2014).

In September 2012, the Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence received a grant

from the Conrad Hilton Fund to perform a five-borough study of data collection and

interpretation which would be released annually, or quarterly, as a part of the Mayor’s Report to

the New York City Council (Hilliard, 2014). More recently, city council legislation included

Initiative #104, to mandate reporting of post-discharge outcomes for the young adults. This

initiative was to be helpful in establishing policy and an evidence-based budget after evaluating

the effectiveness of programs being offered to at-risk youth. It was a new way of holding

agencies responsible for the management of the foster care system.

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Last September, a New York law was codified requiring ACS and other cooperating

agencies to report educational, employment and social outcomes both before and after the aging

out process. In addition, federal law now allows sharing of information among child welfare

agencies and state educational institutions, even without signed parental consent. This was

previously prohibited under federal educational privacy laws (Watanabe, 2013). The ACS must

submit quarterly reports on young people who have aged out of the system and make these

reports available to the public.

The information required from the agency includes high school graduation rates, the age

of the kids when they left formal foster care, the number who had children while in care, the

number who had driver’s licenses and access to their birth certificates and other legal documents

they would need, and the number who received housing assistance after aging out.

ACS is also now required to collect information from other city agencies. The Human

Resources Administration will send reports to ACS on the number of former foster kids who

received food stamps, Medicaid and cash welfare assistance within six months of leaving foster

care. The Department of Homeless Services will report on the number who had become

homeless. The Department of Correction and City Police will provide information on arrests.

The sharing of pertinent information, combined with all these recent attempts at gathering

and quantifying data about the foster care system and the youth who have transitioned out of it

have been the nation’s first real attempt at addressing the deficiencies among kids graduating

from the system. Moreover, it has been a valiant attempt thus far. The collected numbers speak

for themselves, but prominent urban politicians and activists have commented on them as well.

New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio said, “Too often, young adults who grow up in the

city’s foster care system slip through the cracks. Until we can evaluate what happens to the

8Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

hundreds of young people who leave foster care each year, we will not know if we are putting

them on the path to success or creating a generation of disconnected youth stuck in poverty.”

(IRP, 2010). In addition, Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of CUF, stated, “young

people go from being wards of the state as part of the foster system to being adult wards of the

state.” (Flanagan, 2011). Sadly, this is all too true. Consider the following facts in relation to

the roughly one thousand young people who age out every year in New York City boroughs:

25% will be incarcerated before they reach the age of 20 (Hilton Foundation, 2015) or

within two years (Baccaglini, 2011)

50% will be arrested at some point (Bosman, 2009)

People who have been in foster care are ten times more likely to be arrested than those

who have not been in placement (Hartman, 2013)

29% drink alcohol underage, 20% report using recreational drugs and 36% have a family

member with a drug or alcohol addiction (Bosman, 2009)

10% of those who transitioned out of system in mid-2000’s were homeless within one

year, 20% were homeless within three years (Flanagan, 2011)

50% reported having no earned income in the four years following the aging out

(Hilliard, 2014)

25% of teens coming out of foster care are homeless and one-third collect cash assistance

from welfare (Hartman, 2013)

50% have no high school diploma (Baccaglini, 2011)

9Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

These facts are staggering. They are a clear indication that the established methods currently in

place are indeed failing this group of young people. Unfortunately, this is not the end of the bad

news. More studies have gone on to further detail the problems.

Foster care is a transient system. Children in placement are often forced to make multiple

moves, changing schools and school districts. They are uprooted from their classrooms, without

regard to semester calendars and breaks, dropped into a new environment and expected to pick

up whatever the new class is currently working on. This is difficult academically, socially and

emotionally. These youngsters do not have the chance to build any permanent, trusting

relationships with peers or supportive adults, such as teachers, case managers or counselors.

They are seriously lacking stability (Lightfoot, 2014).

Each time they make a move, they can be set back by the equivalent of six months of a

grade level (Watanabe, 2013). More continuity is needed across school districts or with the

transfer of credits. The high school dropout rate for students in foster care was 8% in 2010,

twice that of students outside the placement system. Only 37% of students in foster care were

doing grade level-appropriate work in mathematics, which was lower than all other groups,

including those with learning disabilities and limited English language skills. Hilliard’s research

(2013) had a supporting statistic, finding that only 15% of eighth graders in foster care were

working at grade level in both math and English classes.

Furthermore, this age group of older teenagers has historically been the hardest to find

single-family foster homes. As a result, these teens are placed into the default option of group

homes, which oftentimes have the feel of a juvenile correctional institution (Maza, 2015). The

residents in group homes are evaluated based on their behaviors and granted privileges or

demerits accordingly. They are not experiencing a typical teenage lifestyle. Access to

10Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

extracurricular activities like sports, driver’s education and arts is denied, as are most chances for

nurturing individual development outside the classroom. Phone calls, internet use, television,

field trips and sleepovers are usually out of the question for residents of these group homes.

The Foundling is a New York organization for child welfare that advocates prevention

and treatment for abused and neglected kids in the system (Foundling, 2015). They use an

evidence-based model to address a youngster’s risk factors, monitor successes or problems and

employ evaluation teams to identify and replicate programs that work best to integrate students

into local level programs aimed to prevent kids from falling behind academically, promote skill

sets that prepare them for continuing higher education, strengthen workforce readiness and give

connections to potential workplaces (Flanagan, 2011).

The Child Aid Society, headquartered in the South Bronx, has been serving New York

City youth for one hundred and fifty years without discrimination (CAS, 2015). With over 100

programs offered in 45 locations throughout the city, they work to develop future potential of

foster children and ensure their continued well-being. The Next Generation Center is a bridge

program they sponsor, offering multiple services under one roof, designed to bridge the gap into

adulthood with educational and career programs, family planning, money management, housing

assistance and healthcare.

The Next Generation Center supports young people ages 14 through 24 and prepares

them for the transition to the adult world. They work under the core values of safety, care,

leadership and growth. They have strong partnerships with other agencies including the Legal

Aid Society, Family Court, ACS, New York State Office of Children and Family Services,

Lawyers for Children, Bronx Defenders and Covenant House.

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NGC offers job readiness training, subsidized internships, educational guidance,

advocates, legal counseling, housing assistance, life skills, creative and visual arts, fitness,

medical and dental services. Those still involved in foster care and those who have aged out can

get the support they need here. The Children’s Aid Society helps children in poverty to succeed

and thrive, by providing comprehensive supports to kids and their families in targeted high-needs

New York City neighborhoods.

The National Children’s Bureau is making strides to help states deal with this issue of

foster children and their continued dependence on federal and state government assistance

programs throughout their adult years. The bureau provides training and information to promote

permanency and strategies for more effective transitioning out of foster care. Branches of the

bureau specifically concerned with this issue are the National Resource Center for Permanency

and Family Connections (NRCPFC), the National Resource Center for Youth Development

(NRCYD) and the Child Welfare Information Gateway. All of these programs have websites

and local offices to enable easy access for both kids and their mentors.

A report issued by the Child’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School

of Law entitled ‘Shame on U.S.’ discussed the need for continuing improvements in data

collection, tighter federal supervision and the system’s failure to protect these foster kids due to

lack of resources and inflexibility of federal bureaucrats (Maza, 2015). Elisa Welchel, a staff

attorney with the Child’s Advocate Institute says, “When data is flawed, every other part of your

system is going to be flawed as well.”

A progress report by ACS stated that independent living services are crucial for teens to

prepare for adulthood prior to aging out and that all kids in the foster system over the age of

fourteen are entitled to receive these services. In house studies have shown that kids who

12Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

received these supports to further their education are more likely to be able to obtain living-wage

level employment in their future. Extending the availability of these programs will result in

fewer unplanned pregnancies, fewer welfare cases and fewer cases with the criminal justice

system. The Hilton Foundation (2015) has been working in New York City to identify foster

care kids who are involved with the juvenile justice system before they age out of care. They

hope to target extra attention on these children, to help them reform before they reach legal adult

age.

Children’s Village is a residential program with a campus in the Manhattan suburb of

Dobbs Ferry (Hilton, 2015). Their goal is to promote family involvement with older teens

through their Foster Parents Partnering with Teens Program. This enhanced support is available

for five years following attendance at their on-site school. Administrators of this program like to

limit residential stays to six months or less, in order to avoid institutionalization of these high-

risk youths. The school is devoted to educational and professional development and offers

extracurricular activities on campus as well as mandatory chores to promote personal

responsibility and enhance the conditions of a cooperative community.

The communications manager at Children’s Village, Topher Nichols, asks himself how

often he had to call home for a little help with money or an ear willing to listen to him blow off

some steam when he was an older teenager and young adult (Miller, 2011). The kids that are

helped by his school do not have that luxury of picking up a phone and relying on someone to

care on the other end. They lack that strong familial support system to be there for them when

they face financial, physical and emotional hardships. That is precisely the missing component

that his school tries to offer these kids, a safety net for when unexpected problems arise. Think

about how kids with families have the ability to take their time becoming fully independent. In

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today’s culture, being self-sufficient by twenty-five is considered good. Somehow, these

youngsters that have just come from the disadvantage of the foster care system are supposed to

be able to do it at eighteen.

It can be intimidating to face the prospect of aging out of the foster care system and be

completely on your own as a young adult. Chimore Glover was one young lady who was excited

about being of legal age and graduating from the foster care system also said, “It was also scary

because I didn’t know if my foster agency was going to help me or not” (Miller, 2011).

In 2010, only 58% of kids who had been in foster care graduated from high school

(Watanabe, 2013). Less than 2% of former New York City foster kids will ever finish college,

according to Watanabe (2013), which is a mere one out of fifty students in the system. The

Hilton Foundation (2015) has stated that less than 10% of people who have spent time in foster

care will ever finish college in their lifetime, although more will start. The University of

Chicago (2013) did a national study which yielded slightly different results than the local city-

specific ones we have already discussed. The Illinois group found that 6% of prior foster

children will earn a two or four year advanced degree by the age of twenty-four. These

researchers also found the rate of arrest for nineteen year olds within a year of transitioning out

of foster care was 34%, but that with their participation in post-transitional social services that

rate decreased to 22%. This reduction shows that young adults do actually benefit from

receiving aftercare that extends well beyond their date of exit from the foster care program

(Winerip, 2013).

Fortunately, the number of colleges and universities, which offer specialty adjustment

programs for previous foster kids, is growing. Scholarships, health care, tutoring services,

mental health therapy, job placement assistance and year-round, on-campus housing options are

14Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

being made available in increasing numbers to youth who need help after the transition (Winerip,

2013). A 2008 federal legislation extended the legal age from eighteen to twenty-one for

eligibility in federal aid programs for previous foster children. These alternatives grant targeted

students additional opportunities for building a good future, paving the path towards

independence with specific, temporary help laid out in clear, definable terms (Baccaglini, 2011).

UCLA has created a Guardian Scholars program which requires these aged out freshmen

students to enroll in a mandatory course about proper study skills. Students are advised to sit in

the front in classes, be on time, ask many questions, use a separate notebook for taking notes in

each subject, to review their notes immediately following class and to utilize the professor’s

office hours for individual mini-conferences during the semester (Winerip, 2013).

New York has funding available through America’s Fund for Foster Youth. It is called

the New York Education Training and Voucher Program. It is a federally funded, state-

administered program designed to help foster children pay for continuing education. Up to five

thousand dollar per year for qualified school related expenses can be applied for, and is

distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis to eligible students. ETV has a website with the

online application and a detailed list of additional requirements. They work directly with the

higher education institution to complete the distribution of funds (fc2sprograms.org, 2015).

Most advocates for continuing support after transition have supported the concept that

educational success will build a sense of self-esteem, self-respect and lead the way to job

opportunities. Having access to these valuable employment opportunities will be the key to

reducing homelessness after aging out of foster care.

Coming from such seemingly hopeless backgrounds, these kids have already experienced

some of the worst that life has to offer. They have been forced, by necessity of circumstance, to

15Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

deal with situations out of their control and beyond the maturity of their years. It is hardly any

wonder that they often become cynical after being abused, neglected or abandoned. The

homelessness, public assistance dependency, out-of-wedlock childbearing and incarceration rates

are the unfortunate reality for these young adults who are poorly prepared to address and

overcome the myriad of problems that will face them as they venture off on their own into the

city streets.

Teenagers often have an outlook on their futures that is punctuated by the invincibility of

youth. They believe everything will work out; it will be okay, nothing bad can happen to them in

spite of the fact that they have already lived through terrible, harmful circumstances in order to

have been placed into foster care in the first place. These kids pass into adulthood on a whim

and a prayer, often with little else to go on. The city’s legal obligation to these children end

when they age out of care. The ethical and moral obligation is not so clear, not so cut-and-dried.

Continued support is the best hope to help them finish college or join the military, to avoid jail or

homelessness.

There are sixty-two private foster care agencies in New York City (nytimes.com, 2000).

When these agencies take custody of the foster children, they are effectively replacing the

parents in their lives, often for a lengthy period of time. They must carefully consider what

exactly parents are responsible for and then do their best to fulfill that role.

Conclusions

Much progress has been made during the last decade to improve the preparation that

young adults receive before they age out of the foster care system. Agencies are trying to

16Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

cooperate with each other in order to provide maximum benefits to the children while they can,

so that future opportunities will be more positive and the likelihood of these young adults

becoming homeless is decreased.

It is vitally important that ACS continue to monitor education and employment training

to help give these young adults a sense of autonomy and empower them to take control of their

own lives after they age out of the system. A comprehensive, inter-organizational, multi-layered

approach will meet the foster children’s short-term needs for safety and wellness while

simultaneously preparing for a healthy future.

According to numbers collected by Hilliard (2014) through the Center for a United

Future in New York City, there are over one hundred and thirty thousand young people aged

sixteen to twenty four in the city who are currently neither working nor attending school. This

amounts to one out of every eight-city residents in this age bracket. This figure is up twenty

percent since the national recession of 2008. Many of these lost kids have come through the

state’s foster care system.

The CFU held a symposium in 2012 to support its ongoing Fostering Careers program.

The ACS Commissioner Ron Richter appointed a new education unit director and announced a

new housing initiative under the Housing Academy Collaborative. CFU collaborates with small

businesses to provide opportunities to foster kids for internships and other effective interventions

with an employment-training component.

ACS needs to reinstate its Office of Youth Development, which it had used in the past to

help young people transition out of state custody into independent adulthood (Hilliard, 2014).

This branch of the foster care agency can design a continuum of care to provide coordinated

17Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

services across social service agency lines and elicit interagency cooperation to ultimately

benefit the kids in their care.

Completion of a transition plan in the ninety or one hundred and eighty days prior to

aging out and being discharged from the foster care would benefit the young adult as they

embark upon this new stage of their life’s journey. The transition plan would be developed in

partnership with the child and their caseworkers. It should answer questions regarding how the

child will obtain a job, find appropriate housing, transportation, take advantage of continuing

education opportunities and receive health care.

The first several months of independent living will certainly present the young adult with

new challenges and require them to make many difficult and important decisions about their

immediate future. Having access to continued support systems and a structured plan in place

will ease the transition and make the many changes occur more smoothly. The caseworkers

should remain available to these youngsters to support them in a way that will enhance their

sense of personal responsibility, independence and self-esteem.

Job training and life skills services are offered through the Department of Youth and

Community Development, the Department of Small Business Services and the Human Resource

Administration. ACS can make use of the city’s resources and services to better serve the aging

out teens in their charge annually. Post-discharge data should continue to be collected at regular

intervals to keep track of the kids who have aged out.

One particularly important reason for the need to keep track of these young adults is the

new Affordable Care Act for health insurance coverage (Vestal, 2014). The new provision under

this act allows states to provide Medicaid coverage for former foster care recipients within the

state where they were fostered until they reach the age of twenty-six. This is a change in the

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system that many people are as of yet unaware. We need to close the knowledge gap and let the

young adults know this is available. There are rather low enrollment numbers for this age group.

This is mainly because with the implementation of the new system, the employees have so many

other, more urgent responsibilities that they have not spent the time needed to identify and locate

all the previous foster children who are now eligible for coverage.

Sixteen states are now enrolling their foster kids before they leave the system, under the

John Chafee Foster Care Independence Provision of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999.

Nevertheless, under the new legislation of ObamaCare, these young people now qualify for

traditional coverage, not expansion benefits. This is a broader, more complete level of service.

According to the Congressional Research Service, 35-60% of prior foster children have

serious or chronic health conditions that are in need of immediate or ongoing medical treatment.

An additional 50-75% have behavioral or social issues that would benefit from receiving therapy.

Common diagnoses include asthma, allergies, ADHD, panic disorder, depression, anxiety,

separation trauma, night terrors and post-traumatic stress disorder (Lightfoot, 2014).

Women who have spent time in foster care are more than twice as likely to become

pregnant before the age of twenty-one, compared to those who have not been in the foster

system. Additionally, more than 50% of men who have been fostered as children will become

fathers by the age of twenty-one, compared to 19% of the general population (Hartman, 2013).

Over 80% of adults who were previous foster children will become parents unexpectedly, at a

time in their lives when they are not ideally equipped to handle such responsibility, thereby

making their children vulnerable to becoming foster kids themselves and repeating the cycle of

ending up in the system, enduring poverty, neglect and, in worst cases, abuse (Hartman, 2013).

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Some kids will become parents before they even reach the age of eighteen themselves (Maza,

2015). Parental education programs are essential so the cycle does not repeat.

Cutler Consulting firm estimates that foster children who age out of the care without

being properly prepared to handle the responsibilities of adult life will cost the nation $5.7 billion

annually. At that price, it is not difficult to see the tremendous importance of preventing these

young adults from suffering homelessness and continued dependence on government programs.

ACS must lead the way into the future with supportive, solution-based, non-judgmental, insight-

oriented, confidential and customized independent living services to support each new group of

transitioning youths as they begin to make their own way in the world.

With careful planning and continued vigilance, we can protect the current foster children

from suffering from homelessness after they leave the umbrella of our care. It is not a lost cause

to presume they will face the future filled with fear, anger and uncertainty. They do not need to

yield to the pressures of gangs, drugs and despair (Bosman, 2009). They need not succumb to

depression or suicide, nor must they live with untreated physical or mental health conditions

(CAS, 2015).

Four percent of adults who have transitioned out of foster care placement currently wind

up on probation or parole (Bosman, 2009). They have broken, dysfunctional family relationships

and are disconnected from the workplace resources that can be so readily provided to them by

social service agencies in cooperation with ACS. This does not need to continue. We have the

means available to improve the outlook for this generation of fostered children.

The Hilton Foundation (2015) has found that over 65% of the people who age out of

foster care will be without a place to live at some point and that 27% of New York City’s

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homeless population have spent some time in foster care in their past. This trend does not need

to continue. We have the available resources to change these alarming statistics for the better.

At the beginning of this thesis, the three core elements were identified that contribute to

the lack of autonomy and sense of powerlessness that face new adults: housing, employment and

education. We have now successfully identified clearly defined solutions to assisting these

young adults in overcoming potential problems with these issues. We need only to teach them

how to best utilize the many resources they have at their disposal. We will be able to do that for

them, so long as we continue with data collection and analysis of the human support and material

support that is being offered to them as they prepare for independent living.

Sharman Stein, a representative for Children’s Services said, “ACS and our foster care

agency providers are committed to working with young people in care to prepare them for

independent living when they leave foster care. We also work to ensure all young people leave

care connected to a loving adult- either an adoptive or foster parent, or another adult who will be

a resource for them beyond their 21st birthday.”

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act was made into law

in 2008. It has been considered to be one of the most essential and transformative laws for child

welfare. For older kids in the foster system, this law makes important changes to child welfare

policy and offers availability of services designed to help ease the transition to adulthood. They

have created a website dedicated to providing information and resources for this particular

segment of foster children and their families at www.fosteringconnections.org .

This Act has recognized the importance of services for older children and that offering

these services to these older kids will create more opportunities for them to thrive after leaving

21Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

care. Young people who stay in the foster system past the age of eighteen are more likely to

graduate from high school, attend college and are far less likely to commit crimes.

Further, this Act recognizes the importance of positive adult connections instead of the

push towards early independence that was seen in the language of the law. Youth need

continued support. Kids across the board, both in and out of foster care, are approaching

independence in adult much later than has been seen in previous generations. The child welfare

system needs to consider this trend; offer youth services and provide much-needed support

during the transition.

This chart illustrates some of the improvements that have resulted from the utilization of

these various support systems, which have been structured to create better outcomes for the high-

risk foster kid population (Courtney et al., 2010):

Outcomes for Former Foster Care Youth Compared to General Population OUTCOME

FOSTER CARE (Ages 23 & 24)

GENERAL POPULATION (Ages 23 & 24)

No high school diploma or GED

24.4 % 7.3%

Not Employed 52% 24.5%Average income from employment

$12,064 $20,349

Has Health Insurance 57% 78%Males who have ever been arrested

81.2% 17.4%

Females who have been pregnant

77% 40.4%

A final note is a thought provided by Casey Hanauer, director of foster care transition for

the YMCA (Lightfoot, 2014): A side effect of being a foster child is a natural resistance to

seeking agency supports. Even when those supports will be helpful and are designed specifically

22Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

to help overcome a common problem encountered by foster kids as they transition into

adulthood, the common reaction is to reject the help due to a basic mistrust that has formed

because so much of what they have experienced in their lives has been dysfunctional. It is our

duty to help these youngsters learn to help themselves.

23Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

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24Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

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25Running head: FOSTER CARE AND HOMELESSNESS

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