According to a nationwide study of runaway youths, more than
one-third had been in foster care in the year before they took to the
streets. More than one out of five youths who arrive at a shelter come
directly from a foster or group home, with 38 percent nationally saying
they had been in foster care at some time during the previous year, the
study found.
In a new phenomenon compared with past surveys, almost 11 percent of the youths said they were homeless and living on the streets before coming to shelters. These findings were the most disturbing to emerge from a study of 170 runaway shelters, said survey director Deborah Bass.[1]
Some experts estimate that 45 percent of those leaving foster care become homeless within a year.[2]
A California study in Contra Costa County found that a third of children placed in foster care eventually end up homeless, and 35% are arrested while in foster care.[3]
Inappropriate placements and a lack of needed services are partly to blame, as Dennis Lepak of the Contra Costa County Probation Department explained to a Congressional subcommittee: "Children are put in inappropriate placements, not designed to offer family counseling, psychiatric treatment, or drug treatment. Children are not prepared to return to families, nor are they provided with a specialized educational and vocational training they need to survive after they become 18." As a result, says Lepak: "They become the new homeless."[4]
The problem is universal in scope. A six-month investigation conducted by the Charlotte Observer found that: "North Carolina's lack of commitment to foster care is helping create a population of throwaway children, many of whom go on to lives of substance abuse, homelessness, crime."[5]
Federal funding contributes to the crisis, as Eileen McCaffrey, executive director of the Orphan Foundation of America, explains:
In a new phenomenon compared with past surveys, almost 11 percent of the youths said they were homeless and living on the streets before coming to shelters. These findings were the most disturbing to emerge from a study of 170 runaway shelters, said survey director Deborah Bass.[1]
Some experts estimate that 45 percent of those leaving foster care become homeless within a year.[2]
A California study in Contra Costa County found that a third of children placed in foster care eventually end up homeless, and 35% are arrested while in foster care.[3]
Inappropriate placements and a lack of needed services are partly to blame, as Dennis Lepak of the Contra Costa County Probation Department explained to a Congressional subcommittee: "Children are put in inappropriate placements, not designed to offer family counseling, psychiatric treatment, or drug treatment. Children are not prepared to return to families, nor are they provided with a specialized educational and vocational training they need to survive after they become 18." As a result, says Lepak: "They become the new homeless."[4]
The problem is universal in scope. A six-month investigation conducted by the Charlotte Observer found that: "North Carolina's lack of commitment to foster care is helping create a population of throwaway children, many of whom go on to lives of substance abuse, homelessness, crime."[5]
Federal funding contributes to the crisis, as Eileen McCaffrey, executive director of the Orphan Foundation of America, explains:
Since federal funding guidelines encourage state-run foster care programs to emphasize short-term, crisis-management services, nongovernment players must concentrate on longer-range, skill-development programs. Youngsters leaving foster-care ill-equipped for life on their own often end up homeless or permanently dependent on welfare services.[6]http://www.liftingtheveil.org/foster14.htm
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