We’re Kathey and Rob Raskin of Las Vegas and we care about foster children and the lives they lead. Dominique Bryant was homeless at 17. Now 23, Bryant was placed in foster care in New York right after birth. She was adopted at 10, but when she turned 17, the mother terminated her parental rights.
Bryant went to a psychiatric clinic for depression shorty after and when she wanted to return to her then foster family they didn’t want to take her back. She was near 18, and with little options was placed in a sobriety house, though she wasn’t an alcoholic.
Because of a missed meeting, which was a requirement for living there, she lost her place and spent four months homeless in the Charlottesville area. Unfortunately, scenarios like this aren’t uncommon.
A national survey from Child Trends for the Children’s Home Society of Virginia and Better Housing Coalition, found that 20% of the people who age out of foster care become homeless within two years. Also reported was that 25% are incarcerated, 42% drop out of school, and 71% of these women become pregnant by 21. The results of the survey also show that Virginia has one of the greatest percentages of youth leaving foster care due to aging out at 20%, compared to 9% across the nation.
The executive director of Micah Ecumenical Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit which assists the Fredericksburg area’s homeless, Meghann Cotter, stated she has seen the amount of homeless youth increase in the decade she’s worked there.
In fact, between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, Planning District 16’s homeless services system, which includes Spotsylvania, Caroline, Fredericksburg, Stafford, and King George counties, saw 162 clients between 18 and 24, 12% of all those seen.
Cotter stated that many former foster care kids either age out or emancipate themselves at 18. She stated that research shows 85% of former foster-care youth have experienced a trauma. These children lack the life skills all 18-year-olds do, but they also must deal with a reduced amount of coping skills and no social support system.
Though 18 is legally adulthood, research from the CHS report displays that the brain continues to grow through 25. Today’s young adults rely on their parents for financial and emotional support well into their 20s. Without a built-in support system, moving from adolescence to adulthood is so much more difficult.
In 2016, 464 foster children aged out in Virginia. This can grow as well since the amount of children in foster care grew by 8% between 2011 and 2015 nationally. This could be due to the opioid epidemic, which was declared a “public health emergency” in October.
Chief advancement officer at Children’s Home Society, Bruin Richardson, stated there are several reasons why Virginia has higher numbers. “One is that we’re a county-administered system and that creates some barriers [regarding…] adopt[ion],” he stated. “Kids tend to be older when they [enter] the system […] than the national average. […T]hey may have more significant trauma and [… they become] teenagers before they [are] eligible […] adopt[ion]. And it’s harder to place those kids.”
