FLORIDA
Transitioning foster care youth to adult lives
Many foster care kids who live through the system are now getting financial advice and other forms of help. CBS4 and Neighbors 4 Neighbors has been looking into a topic that many of you many not know about or consider – the hundreds of teens transitioning out of foster care each year. From time to time, we'll be bringing you some of their stories.
Latasha Davis is an 18 year old from Miami who's working hard to make it on her own. She keeps her small one bedroom apartment very clean, and is proud of the furniture she bought with money saved from working at a fast food restaurant. "It's mine, all mine. I don't have to share with anyone" Latasha says with pride.
She taught herself how to budget because she didn't have anyone to teach her. But along the way, she's learned to cut corners, like looking out for a bargain and living close to a bus stop, "So it's easy for me to get to school or to work," to get around town.
Latasha grew up in South Florida's foster care system, and agreed to show us her side so that we can understand the struggles she, and others like her face. She often describes her experience to her peers. "My friends aging out of foster care – I'm telling them, it's really not easy. It's hard. It's frustrating," Davis said.
In January, Latasha turned 18. Her story is one of the better ones. "Growing up in foster care actually I didn't even think I would make it past high school", explains Latasha, "I felt lucky to go to high school and finish it. Which I recently have done." She now attends Miami Dade College. Only twenty percent of children in foster care go to college and less than five percent of those will graduate. "So few foster kids think they can get to college because they have no help, they have no one to guide them. and when we don't have anyone to guide us we're just lost. And when we're lost, we just give up," Latasha said about the disparity.
At times, Latasha says she felt like giving up. It's hard to survive on the $892 a month she gets from the Department of Children and Families. Just the rent on her Miami Gardens apartment is $725. Phone, electricity, food and the bus add up to $300 more. One thing Latasha feels all young adults transitioning out of foster care could use is more money. "I think more money should be given, more money should be going towards foster care kids transitioning out so they can have a better, you know, not only life, not only just pushing the kids out, but so they can become independent, with dignity" says Latasha.
But she's getting help – Hal Lucas is an attorney who helps her work through the system thanks to a program called lawyers for children. He helped her find financial assistance for her rent. "Budgeting a check book at 18 is a daunting task. I didn't have to do it, a lot of people don't. And what you see is reality, what many children have to face whether they're in foster care or in other situations they're faced with that burden" said Lucas.
And Latasha also gets help from Educate Tomorrow – funded by the Children's Trust. "They gave me a mentor who's like very great. I can talk to her, when I don't understand something I can go to her" said Latasha.
Latasha hopes to get herself on stable ground, so her three year old son can move in with her. And one day, she plans to help others like her, by specializing in family law.
9 June 2008
