I've been able to connect with a number of people over the years, and while everyone has a different story, some details seem to repeat themselves to a startling degree. And it's the one identified in the title. One person who I was able to help find a job remains gainfully employed and has been living indoors for over a year now after what I estimate to have been about fifteen (15) years of living outdoors. Addiction is a big part of his story - not for him, but rather for his mother, which resulted in his living outdoors before he finished high school. Two others who are also now gainfully employed were in foster care. The reality is that foster care doesn't prepare children for life. The commonly accepted stats are as follows:
- nationally, 20% of those who age out of foster care live outdoors within their first four years afterwards. in CA, the percentage is almost 31%;
- nationally, approximately 29% of youth without housing between the ages of 13 and 25 have spent time in foster care;
- 61% of the homeless who were in foster care are likely to be incarcerated, vs. 46% of homeless youth who were never in foster care;
- 47% of all former foster care youth who've lived outside also did so with their biological families vs. 9% of non-foster youth;
I tutor, so this resonates with me. A lot of the time, the main thing I have to do is give a student the confidence that they can do the work. So I can see that a lot of these kids might not know how to go about reaching goals, but a lot of them won't even be motivated to set goals because they don't believe that they might reach these goals.
I suppose that this is about my thinking about exploring what I can do to help improve things, but also for any of you reading this to consider if this motivates you to try and make some sort of positive impact in the life of a single kid who might be capable of great things if they had a meaningful support system.
