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Sunday, August 5, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Our foster youth need support until age 21
John Burton


   For most young people, graduating from high school marks an
important step
forward in their life as young adults. For Sara, an 18-year-old in
California's foster-care system, it resulted in a step back into her
abusive past.
   As a recent high school graduate, Sara was no longer eligible for
foster
care and stopped receiving the food, shelter and supportive services it
had provided since she entered foster care at age 8. With no options
available, Sara did what many youth who "age out" of foster care do:
She
returned to her family - the very family from which she was originally
removed due to abuse and neglect.
   In Sara's case, that meant moving back to her mother's East Oakland
apartment, where her mother's heroin addiction was supported by a
steady
stream of paying customers and prostitution. Sara was locked out of the
apartment for hours at a time and often returned to find that her few
personal possessions had been stolen and sold. She worried about her
personal safety and found it hard to sleep at night.
   Her dreams of higher education were put on hold as she struggled to
make
it through each day. After several months living in this dangerous and
chaotic environment, Sara decided she had to get out, thinking being
homeless was better than being dead.
   Sadly, Sara is not alone.
   If fact, the number of youth who "age out" or "emancipate" from
foster
care is at an all time high, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts'
Kids
Are Waiting campaign, with 25,000 youth emancipating in 2005, up 41
percent since 1998. Here in California, more than 4,000 "age out"
annually, a figure, which according to University of California at
Berkeley's Center for Social Services Research, has matched national
trends, growing 40 percent since 1998.
   Like Sara, these young people face an uphill battle once they leave
the
foster-care system. According to research conducted by Professor Mark
Courtney of the University of Washington, youth who left foster care by
age 18 were nearly three times more likely than their peers to be out
of
work and school. They were twice as likely to be unable to pay their
rent
and were four times as likely to be evicted. Nearly half of the young
women had been pregnant at least once by age 19. Significant numbers
were
incarcerated or homeless at some point.
   In an effort to prevent these costly outcomes and give young people
such
as Sara a chance, several states have implemented a common-sense
solution:
extending foster care eligibility to age 21. California should do the
same.
   But there's an obstacle. Up to age 18, the federal government pays
approximately 50 percent of all foster-care costs in California. After
that, they stop contributing. Without the federal government's share,
most
states decide it's just too expensive to extend foster care for three
more
years, leaving children out on their own.
   U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wants to change that. She has
introduced legislation (S1512) that would offer states the option of
providing foster care to older youth by extending federal funding to
age
21. Organizations from around the country are signing on to support her
proposal, including the American Bar Association, which will adopt a
resolution to expand support for older youth in foster care at its
annual
conference held this week in San Francisco.
   Three years may not seem as if it's a long time, but studies have
found
that it makes a world of difference. A 2005 report by the Chapin Hall
Center for Children at the University of Chicago found that youth who
are
allowed to remain in foster care beyond age 18 were 200 percent more
likely to be working toward completion of a high school diploma and 300
percent more likely to be in college than youth who left foster care at
age 18. They were also more likely to be insured, have better mental
health and far less likely to be victims or perpetrators of crime and
violence.
   Supporting foster care until age 21 is particularly important in
terms of
preventing crime and reducing the expense of incarceration. A 2007
study
from the University of Chicago concluded that both male and female
former
foster youth are ten times more likely to be arrested since age 18 than
youth of the same age, race and sex. According to the California Budget
Project, the associated costs of these arrests and incarcerations are
considerable, with the per capita cost of adult incarceration in
California in 2006 reaching $43,287 annually.
   Given the crisis in the California prison system, supporting foster
youth
until age 21 is one practical way to stem to flow of youth into the
adult
correction system.
   Expanding support for youth in foster care until age 21 also
reflects a
growing demographic trend: longer-term support of young adults is a
fact
of American life. How many parents today cut off their child entirely
at
age 18? Not many, according to the Pew Research Center, which found
that
more than half of adult children receive an average of $3,410 annually
from their parents until age 40. Studies by the University of Michigan
and
the University of Chicago show the same thing, particularly during the
early years of young adulthood through age 26. We've all heard about
the
phenomenon of "boomerang kids," adult children who move back in with
the
parents in their 20s and 30s.
   It's hard enough to make it on your own these days, especially as an
18-year-old in the Bay Area. We don't cut off our own kids at that age,
and the foster-care system shouldn't do it, either. These young adults
are
in foster care through no fault of their own. We owe it to them, and to
Californians who foot the bill for more prisons, to make the best
decisions in their interest. Sen. Boxer's proposal to expand foster
care
until age 21 makes perfect sense and is the right thing to do.

   John Burton, former president pro tem of the state Senate, now
chairs the
John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes.
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Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle