Aging Out of Foster Care
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Description
Foster care youth experience disproportionate rates of homelessness, incarceration, food insecurity, and trauma. The pandemic has only made things more uncertain. With the odds so stacked against them, how can we ensure that foster youth will be able to build a sustainable future for themselves once they transition out of the system and are no longer eligible for the benefits they previously relied on? Franco Vega and Amber Baker of the RightWay Foundation join us on this week’s episode to address these questions and share the extreme hurdles they overcame as foster youth themselves.
Keep up with Julián on twitter @JulianCastro and Instagram @JulianCastroTX.
Resources from this episode:
- Keep up with The RightWay Foundation here.
- Learn more about the foster care system with this handy collection of links courtesy of The Marshall Project.
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Transcription
SPEAKERS
Franco Vega, Julian Castro, Speaker 4, Amber Baker
Julian Castro 00:02
California is home to the largest number of foster care youth in the country. At any given time, about 60,000 kids are attempting to navigate the system, often while trying to overcome a troubled past. While some will find loving families, others will be on a constant journey to find the right home, instead of doing what they should be doing, just being kids. In California, youth become emancipated at 21, meaning they’re no longer eligible for foster care. After that, they’re pretty much on their own. And the system isn’t really set up to help them succeed once they’re ready to enter the workforce, or to build a life for themselves. foster care youth are disproportionately at risk for incarceration. And in California, one in four emancipated youth are homeless.
Franco Vega
I believe a lot of focus should go to this age population that we call transition age youth, it seems like people are more attractive to working with the little kids, you know, the precious little ones, instead of working with the older ones. Some people focus on if a kid has a tattoo and they have a mustache, and they can deal with it on their own. Let’s forget about them. And let’s give the ones with the ponytails a chance, but our population needs to get intense services.
Julian Castro
Franco Vega is the director of The Right Way Foundation, a Los Angeles based center helping youth in their transition to self-sufficiency as they exit the foster care system. Through mental health counseling, job placement, and housing assistance. Franco and his team are picking up the slack of a system that’s failing our children.
Amber Baker
I wanted to be more than a stat, you know, like less than 10% graduate from college, like I want to be more than what they say we are.
Julian Castro
This week, I sit down with Franco and Amber Baker, a graduate and Ambassador of the Right Way program to hear about their firsthand experiences with the system and their hopes for revolutionizing it.
Julian Castro 02:11
This is OUR AMERICA. I’m your host, Julian Castro.
Franco Vega
Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary for having us.
Amber Baker 02:26
Thank you for having us.
Julian Castro
Yeah, appreciate you making the time, if y’all could just introduce yourselves and tell me how you know each other.
Franco Vega
Well, my name is Franco Vega. I’m executive director and the founder of The Right Way Foundation.
Amber Baker
My name is Amber Baker. I know Franco through The Right Way Foundation. I’ve known him about like 2016.
Franco Vega
Yeah, like we’ve known Amber for a long time. I could tell how long I known everybody how many buildings we have had. So we moved from one location to another location. And we’ve taken Amber with us. And amber is a graduate and alumni and an ambassador of The Right Way Foundation. She represents all the foster youth that come into our program.
Julian Castro
Amber, you have had an amazing personal journey to where you are now, overcome a lot. Could you talk to me a little bit about your journey?
Amber Baker
Yeah, so I was born with drugs in my system. So I ended up getting to again, as I was a baby, I end up getting back in a system in middle school
Julian Castro
Amber briefly left the system to live with her dad and his girlfriend. But what was supposed to be a reprieve from foster care resulted in beatings and sexual abuse. Unfortunately, Amber’s experiences are uncommon. Foster care youth are at high risk for abuse, neglect, or abandonment, which often result in post-traumatic stress. In fact, former foster youth are twice as likely as veterans to experience PTS later in life.
Amber Baker 04:02
I was going from home to home when I got into high school, my high school counselor ended up taking me in so I’m still you know, I’m still getting better you know, I’m still dealing with it. My mouth can still go from zero to 100 but I’m learning to deal with it you know, as I’m dealing with what I you know, went through, honestly, so once I heal, you know, my mouth go heal too.
Julian Castro
You’ve been through a lot, what was your low point?
Amber Baker
I will say about 2010. I just had got from one home I was placed with my auntie. And it actually was ain’t going good at all. And I ended up trying to take my own life. And then I ended up being in place with my sister. And she was already going through her own stuff, you know, we went through as kids, and she had her kid going through it. And, you know, she used to pull me out her house while I was sleeping, you know, in downtown LA, at the parks and on benches, because I’m only literally like, what 13 going through this not knowing nothing, like where I’m gonna go, what I’m gonna do, and you know, where I’m gonna eat? And it was a lot.
Julian Castro
What kept you going?
Amber Baker
Honestly, I ended up getting a really good support system, I want to say, you know, like, I ended up getting people that was in biological, my family that, you know, let’s apply to college, and let’s do this. And, you know, they wanted to see more for me. And that made me want to see more for myself. If you met me before my attitude when I was especially high school, you know, I was going to what I was going to so my attitude, and my demeanor was just, I had a bad attitude. But I wanted to be more than a stat, you know, like, less than what 10% graduate from college like, I don’t want to be that stat. I want to be more than what they say we are.
Franco Vega 06:31
The foster care youth are survivors. They’ve been through some of the toughest, unimaginable circumstances that a kid can go through. And they haven’t given up. And that’s what people need to focus in on is that how much adversity they have dealt with in trauma they had dealt with. Amber wasn’t lying when she said about her attitude. When she came into our office. She was a firecracker. But she is so loyal. And, you know, that’s what people should recognize about foster care system. They weren’t asked to be born; they were dealt a bad hand. And, you know, just give them an opportunity and a chance.
Julian Castro
Franco has come to this understanding because sadly, he’s heard so many stories, just like ambers. And because he’s been there himself.
Franco Vega
Sadly, I lost my dad when I was 10, to alcoholism. And then I lost my mom, when I was 15 to cancer. I know what these kids are missing. I know how to be a part of a family but not really being a part of family. Someone just taken me in. I know how to keep trauma inside and it affects the outcome, it affects my decision makings. I was in another juvenile hall, run into streets in the 80s in Los Angeles, due to lack of supervision and abuse and trauma. So I joined the gang to become my family. And so when my mom died, I was rescued by an African American family in South Central Los Angeles. And so I was raised by a family that was not blood to me. A probation officer was my parent. And the judge made sure that if I got out of line, I would go into camp. If I straighten up myself, then when I 18, they’ll release me off probation.
Franco Vega 08:13
And then so that’s happened, and I joined the military. So I went right into the army to save me. So this was an easy field to go in for myself, you know, 25 years, I’ve been working with this population. And for couple years, I tried to get out of it. But it seemed like the universe kept pulling me back into it. And so the 2011 I found The Right Way Foundation, and we haven’t looked back. And so we service over 500 transition age, foster care youth 18 and over, and it’s just a unique population that’s been underserved and ignored.
Julian Castro
You know, one of the things I remember from my conversation with the young folks who had gone through the foster care system was they said, they wanted people that they could count on in their life.
Franco Vega
Correct. And that’s all they want. They want someone there, because trauma is something we keep passing down to each other. And the data shows that 50% of foster kids will have kids and their kids will end up in the system. So it’s a cycle that we have to break. I have four kids now and I’m a grandfather and I don’t abuse or talk to any of my children the way my mom talked to me. I don’t drink and abuse alcohol at all and definitely won’t do it in front of my kids like my dad did in front of me. So yeah, it’s just these kids need someone to trust and count on. If we promise something to Amber, we have to fulfill that promise. If I say I’m gonna get her a job, I get her a job. But I say I’m gonna give her some money for food or housing allowance and I have to provide that for her, if I say I will be there for her, I have to be there for her at any time 24/7 we don’t take days off at The Right Way Foundation.
Franco Vega
All of my staff they have to be available 24/7 for the youth we serve. Some of our therapists see therapist outside of Right Way Foundation on their own. And they come back and tell their stories that one of our therapists was in a session with her therapist, and was crying. And then her therapist at 40 minutes, cut it off said, okay, time’s up. We’ll continue this next time. How do you do that? If my biological kids are crying to me, we don’t cut them off, say “Joshua time to cut this off. Let’s talk about this next week.” No, you keep talking to them, until something evolves until the crying at least stops.
Julian Castro 10:38
The Right Way Foundation has celebrated many successes with foster youth. But it’s a constant uphill battle, with many systemic obstacles working against them. One of these is what’s known as the foster care to prison pipeline. As the name suggests, the policies and practices of one system, act as a conduit to another, the criminal justice system.
Franco Vega
So you have folks that leave a foster care system, and they’re in survival mode. And when you’re in survival mode, you make some horrible decisions. And when you make those decisions, the law is there to scoop you up and put you right into prison. So now you went from a foster care system that really didn’t care not a lot about you, it ran into another prison system, that’s not gonna care a lot about you. And so that’s why we say to prison to pipeline, and that’s what we say, to foster care to homelessness system, because the data do show that that’s where our folks are going to end up if they don’t have one or two caring adults in their life.
Julian Castro
Amber, you talked about housing, and I understand that you have struggled to find affordable housing, can you talk to me about that experience?
Amber Baker 11:48
I’m still struggling, honestly. You know, I’m grateful that I have a roof over my head, but is so expensive out here. Like my last place I had on my own, it was a studio. I was like it was affordable, but it wasn’t in early. So mind you, everybody I know is here. So I was then all the way out and like Bellflower and there and then also stayed in like East LA. So all my people that I know is here, so I have to live farther in order to survive, but even then you still have to pay a light bill, water bill, your phone bill, your car, your insurance. But I literally been looking for a place since a year now, honestly, and I still haven’t really been able to find think of this as expensive. And it’s like you have to have multiple jobs in order to survive, you know, and it sucks. But that’s just, that’s just life.
Franco Vega
Sadly, to piggyback off of Amber, it costs about a good $1300 to have a studio or a small one bedroom in city of Los Angeles. And then you have to have good credit. And then you have to have three times the amount to move in. And so a lot of folks are discriminating against our younger population, you know, who’s gonna risk renting to a 21-23-year-old with three jobs. And that’s unfair, and that’s unfair. And so you putting in a foster youth who comes from a lot of trauma, and then if they’re getting over their trauma, we’re going to move in another person to have to be on the same page. And what if they’re not on the same page? And that could be a war right there in itself. So yeah, and then we train our youth when they become parents. If they run into any law enforcement don’t talk about the foster care system. Because once a cop knows, or law enforcement knows that our kids have been in the foster care system that brings up a red flag. “Oh, well, they came from a bad environment. So let’s really pay attention to them.” You know, and we’ve heard it thrown up in court. We’ve heard county council say, well, this kid grew up in foster care system. We’re like, “Well, you can’t use that against them.” This is your system.
Julian Castro 14:10
Yeah. That’s like a, you know, like a scarlet letter basically on them.
Franco Vega
Correct. You try to take a kid from his home and make them fit into a stranger’s home. And that just doesn’t work. You should just fix the family, you know, fix the young mothers and young dads that never was shown how to be a successful parent. They picked up some bad behaviors, and the cycle continues. Amber was blessed when she found her guidance counselor and took her in. That’s a diamond in the rough, you know, who has that? I had to go to the army to get my training. And so the military showed me how to step up and be responsible. But we’re not teaching our youth how to be young adults, checking their credit, having a bank book, buying a car, proper shopping, stuff like that. Some of our foster youth when they get their first big major check, they go blow their money right away because they’re buying things they never had.
Julian Castro
We look at what’s happening to foster care youth after they’re emancipated. People look at that in amazement who are not familiar with the system. And even those who are familiar with the system have certainly be intensely frustrated with it. What are we not doing that we should be doing? To make sure that people have a better chance in life than they seem to right now.
Franco Vega
I’ve been doing this business for 25 years, and the money keeps going up our budget for the foster care system keeps rising, but the outcomes are still the same. It costs about $75,000 a year for one kid to go to the foster care system. Where’s that $75,000 going to? We could take 15,000 of that and fix the family right away, help pay the rent, help pay for some food, babysitting costs, childcare. But that’s not the case. They dump a lot of more money for law enforcement, and we can’t keep pushing cops in law enforcement. The funding can’t keep going to law enforcement. It has to go into providers.
Julian Castro 16:14
And there have been some recent developments on that front. In April, California allocated $42 million to address the needs of foster care youth, which have only increased with the coronavirus pandemic. And in June, Northern California’s Santa Clara County started a pilot program to provide $1,000 monthly stipend for foster youth transitioning out of the system to help pay for basic necessities like clothing, food, and housing.
Franco Vega
I think a universal basic income for foster kids to a certain age will be a great start, because it’s mathematically it’s just dollars and cents. These kids like you said the homelessness, they’re homeless because they can’t afford to pay rent.
Julian Castro
But it may not be enough. The coronavirus pandemic has only made things more precarious for foster youth. Many places that transitional youth rely on have shut down as a result, like college dorms for housing, or centers like Right Way for group therapy sessions, pubs that offer a sense of community are now strictly appointment only. During the pandemic, foster youth often have had little choice but to return to previous housing situations. They’ve tried hard to escape, reimagining what we do in the foster care system. And how we do it is more important than ever.
Franco Vega
The software system doesn’t think outside the box. It’s always in a box. We can’t do something for this kid. Or they can’t do this. No. If you could do it for your biological kid. Why can’t you do it for the foster care? youth? I would like to see if the county gets involved with the families, fix the families and stop taking them out the family as an answer. You know, we jokingly say Department of Children, are family snatchers. And we should be department children and family saviors, focus in on the family find out what’s going on. If a woman is getting abused by her husband or boyfriend, you know, they take the kid away. Why is that? That mother loves her kids. She’s just getting beat up by an abusive man, the answer is not taking the kid away from the mother start putting resources into the families. So that would be my solution. I don’t need more cops. A cop is not going to save a foster kid. But a community-based organization or someone like Amber’s mentor will save the foster care system.
Julian Castro
Amber, what changes would you like to see in this system after your personal experience with it, and your work to try and change it?
Amber Baker
I will say these social workers. Like I’m not saying they are just bad, but they got to be better. Their support needs to be better for these kids. My social worker checked in once a month, hand me a check and that was it. I have all lady social workers and they never really sat down and was like, you know, here’s the goal or where do you want to go? Or you know, like they didn’t help us with nothing. It was a check once a month and that was it. It has to be way more than that. You know, the thing is, maybe if I would have reached out while I was homeless before I would have been able to sleep somewhere but me you know, I grew up fighting for myself you know and doing for myself and not asking so when I did not have a place to sleep. It was hard for me to ask when I was 21. Once they stopped the checks. I was still staying where I was staying for a little bit but I ended up becoming homeless, sleeping in my car. That’s actually when I lost my job. And as around the time I end up meeting the Right Way, Franco,
Julian Castro 20:07
And how did you find The Right Way Foundation?
Amber Baker
Actually, my mom that took me in, she ended up knowing somebody that knew Franco. And so she ended up calling me like, “go here tomorrow.” So I ended up going to the right way foundation The next day, and ever since then, like, they’ve been there since day one, literally. And especially the therapist, like she’s with me, I can call her on Sunday, and she’s there, you know, so, honestly, if I didn’t have, you know, my mom right now, like, I wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t have known where to live, you know, she don’t have to let me live here. You know, I don’t even pay rent, like I try giving her. And she doesn’t even take it, you know, like, but I’m grateful 95% of the foster, you don’t have that. I couldn’t go to my biological family and ask them to, if I can sleep under a roof and live with them, you know, like, it is the support that we get, we don’t get it. That’s the thing and it sucks.
Julian Castro
With the help of Right Way. Amber is well on her way to earning a psychology degree that will put her in an even more qualified position to help High School teens, a testament to the center’s comprehensive approach to caring for foster youth.
Amber Baker
I really do love education. Once I graduated my BA I just want to get my masters and start my career. So that’s my goal by 30. I got about four years.
Julian Castro
All right. Are you well on your way?
Amber Baker
Yeah.
Julian Castro
Now that you’re 26 years old, and you have perspective on it, what would you say to a young girl who’s six years old, who’s right in the middle of her foster care journey.
Amber Baker
Don’t give up to keep going. There are better days, it’s hard, but you know, try to find a place where they can help you, help you heal, be there for you like a safe haven, you know, because that’s what I wanted, you know, and I got it somebody to be there and care for me and love me and show me that, you know, my parents have not wanted me but I do have people in my life that do care for me and want to see me be better, you know, and go somewhere with my life.
Franco Vega 22:36
We’re a family now, you know, a true family. It doesn’t have to be blood. Family is not blood, you know. A family is love.
Julian Castro
Well, Amber and Franco, thank you so much for sharing your journey, and for everything that you’re doing to help make sure that things are okay. And more than that, for so many young people today, good luck.
Franco Vega
Thank you.
Amber Baker
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Julian Castro
Amber and Franco have plenty to be proud of. They both overcame incredible adversity at the hands of a system ill equipped to provide the comprehensive care that every child in America deserves. But there are 1000s of youth who aren’t as fortunate to have gotten out of an abusive household, or gone on to pursue higher education, who haven’t found that sense of family that Franco spoke about. They’ve already experienced so much trauma; we owe it to them to address the many cracks in the system. And to work to make sure they don’t fall through them.
Julian Castro
Next week, we talked to a man who has devoted his career in politics to fighting for the people left behind.
Speaker 4
So in other words, to take these issues to the people, not just in Washington, but to talk about how people are getting ripped off with wage theft, and not getting the overtime that they deserve. And God knows during this COVID if we’ve seen anything, it’s so many workers are forced to work on unsafe working conditions. They are dying, because they don’t have the protections that they need. So it’s like sitting at Washington coming up with complicated ideas. It’s going out to the people and making them aware that the United States government is listening to them. That’s what interests me.
CREDITS
OUR AMERICA is a Lemonada Original. This episode was produced by Matthew Simonson. Jackie Danziger is our supervising producer. Our associate producer is Giulia Hjort. Kegan Zema is our technical director. Music is by Hannis Brown. Executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova Kramer and Julian Castro. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow us at @LemonadaMedia across all social platforms, or find me on Twitter at @JulianCastro or in Instagram, at @JulianCastroTX
