foster care system

the foster care system is a hidden population

While the homeless presence is becoming more visible on our cities’ streets, the youth foster care population remains a fragmented community often hidden from view. Not a single system, numerous regional, state and private agencies provide varying solutions. Major problems in one locality may not be issues elsewhere.
​

by the numbers *

  • 24,472 youth were in group homes in 2017 (6%)
  • 29,438 youth were in institutional care in 2017 (7%)
  • 123,437 were in placement and waiting for adoption (28%)
  • 247,631 exited foster care during that year (56%)
  • 269,690 entered the system during that year (61%)
  • 690,548 children, in total, were served within the foster care system for 2017, a number greater than those in school attendance in the Los Angeles Unified School District
* from the 2018 AFCARS report

and a quote...

“We must not allow this generation to produce record numbers for the juvenile justice, runaway and homeless youth, or foster care systems.”
- Ruben Hinojosa,
​former U.S. Representative

heartache sundays

As children, we didn’t understand much about a “foster care system.” We just knew that we were taken away from our homes because they were broken, and we were at risk. That description traveled with us, within us. Three meals a day and a bed to sleep in did not fill the holes in our hearts.

Some Sundays were visiting days. I would watch a girl walk away from the cottage where we bunked. She was with a family member of some kind. Mostly, they walked slowly. A few mysterious hours together and the girl would return. The rest of us stayed behind, unable to move between worlds.
- postcript by the author