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Foster kids tossed into mean world
At 18 months, his mother scalded his hands so severely that they would be permanently deformed. Years of horrific abuse, including daily beatings by his father, followed before Child Protective Services stepped in. His childhood became a blur of dozens of foster home placements, which ended only when he turned 18. Then he was on his own. At one point, he ended up living under the Gulf Freeway overpass next to the Greyhound station in downtown Houston.
Countless times I've driven past that spot on my way to work, and it never occurred to me to wonder about the people there, dozing on black trash bags stuffed with their meager belongings: What's their story? How did they end up sleeping on the street?
Then I read "Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope," a new book on the crisis of youth homelessness, and met "Benjamin," a young Houston man whose personal narrative exemplifies the broken Texas foster care system.
In "Almost Home," authors Kevin Ryan, president of the Covenant House youth shelter network, and Tina Kelley, a former New York Times reporter, tell the stories of six young adults abandoned by their families and society – until they arrive at Covenant Houses in various parts of the country. Each story illustrates a particular reason for homelessness, such as human trafficking and domestic violence.
Not surprisingly, Benjamin's time on the streets can be directly traced to Texas' inadequate foster care system, which traps thousands of kids in a family-less limbo. About 16,000 Texas children are in foster care, and each year, about 1,500 will "age out" when they reach the magical age of 18. It's as if the state of Texas says: Happy birthday! You're on your own!
In 2009 some 6,400 kids had been in foster care for more than three years – churning through an average of 11 different placements. Five hundred kids had been in foster care for more than a decade.
Patricia Kilday Hart
13 October 2012
