Fosters Speak out: Understanding Homelessness
Last month, three powerful Foster leaders—Ace, Donovan, and Ryn—shared their expertise with our Foster Advocates presentation at the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless (MCH) annual conference.
It takes $50,000 per year to fully fund leadership programs for Fosters that connect them to opportunities like the MCH conference. Ace, Donovan and Ryn showed how critical it is to pay attention to the overlap between Fosters and young people experiencing homelessness, and to recognize that foster care is often the root of housing instability and homelessness.
What does the data show? While there is a lot more to learn about this overlap, as homelessness studies rarely explore foster care history, it’s clear that experiencing homelessness is the norm for Fosters. In Minnesota, best estimates are that 27-34% of young adults currently experiencing homeless have been in foster care. For Hennepin County Fosters, 79% have experienced homelessness by age 24, with over 25% experiencing chronic homelessness (over a year). National estimates show that up to 2/3rds of Fosters become homeless within a year of aging out of care--but that is not the only pathway into homelessness. Nearly half of those who exited foster care through reunification or adoption, and achieved “permanency” in the eyes of the system, still experience homeless as young adults
Our systems are currently failing Fosters, and it costs our communities deeply, both financially and in lost time and talent. Fosters are the most predictable population to become homeless. Something so predictable is also highly preventable--but only if we have the will to act. We cannot prevent or reduce homelessness without focusing on Fosters, who are already at the center of governmental systems. But by testing and finding solutions that uplift Fosters, we can find solutions that uplift the larger homeless community.
Vetted by our Foster leaders, Foster Advocates has identified key homelessness intervention and prevention recommendations—watch the presentation to hear more from Ace, Donovan, and Ryn!