Not long after the federal government passed a pandemic relief package last December to help former foster youth struggling to make ends meet, Christina Torrez received a $1,500 cash card.
The money was essential, she says, in keeping her family afloat during the height of the pandemic. Torrez, a 25-year-old mother of three who lives in California’s Central Valley, spent the cash card on her electricity and phone bills and bought shoes and clothing for her children.
“The one-time payment helped a lot,” Torrez said. “But I’m still struggling.”
In addition to offering cash cards and other help to former foster youth, the federal aid package extended foster care benefits to those who were meant to exit the system this year, allowing the youth to continue receiving support as they transitioned into adulthood and self-sufficiency.
To the disappointment of advocates and foster youth, the federal aid expired at the end of September, despite efforts to pass new legislation to extend it, leaving tens of thousands of former foster youth to fend for themselves.
Most states already aged out their foster youth after the pandemic aid expired. In California, however, the governor extended the moratorium to the end of the year. Yet, without federal aid or state intervention, on December 31 an estimated 3,600 California youth will age out of the foster care system on the same day, which has inspired some advocates to call them “cliff youth.”
When foster youth age out of the system, they leave behind supportive services that include financial stipends, transitional housing and case management.
Advocates and lawmakers recognized the pandemic posed even more hardships on foster youth — data shows the pandemic put foster youth exiting the system at an increased risk of unemployment, food insecurity and housing instability. In response, Congress passed an emergency aid package that included the Supporting Foster Youth and Families through the Pandemic Act.
The law provided, among other things, a moratorium on aging out of the system and allowed for supportive services and financial aid to be made available to former foster youth up to age 27.
“The moratorium itself — keeping youth in care and not aging them out during the pandemic — has helped so many thousands of young people stabilize and be safe,” said Anna Johnson, housing and health associate director at the foster youth advocacy nonprofit John Burton Advocates for Youth.
“We will never know exactly how much that prevented homelessness or transmission of Covid, but we know it did,” she added.
Torrez was one of 15,000 who received a cash card in California out of 30,000 who were thought to be eligible, Johnson said.
A bill extending the moratorium on youth exiting foster care has gone nowhere since it was introduced in the House in September, dashing hopes any extension there is possible.
Advocates are now resting their hopes on a different bill at the federal level, H.R.5661 Continued State Flexibility To Assist Older Foster Youth Act, which would allow states to tap federal funds through the John H. Chafee Program for former foster youth. In California, for instance, the Chafee fund could go toward cash cards, like the one Torrez got, or housing vouchers.
The bill passed the House but has stalled in the Senate.
Differing state approaches to the pandemic and the strict nature of child welfare funding laws are two of the major challenges advocates face, Johnson explained. She said the child welfare system isn’t designed to be flexible in times of public health emergencies.
“Public health-wise, is it the right time to cut people off from these benefits? No. Has the economy rebounded such that young people have sufficient work again? No,” she emphasized. “We’re definitely not back to any kind of normal.”
Torrez, who was first introduced to the child welfare system at age 6 and entered foster care at age 15, has experienced herself and witnessed the challenges former foster youth face being on their own without the aid of supportive services. With the pandemic, it’s even tougher, she said.
“Since the pandemic, a lot of foster youth are becoming homeless,” she said. “So, that one-time cash card was really very beneficial, but they should have extended the deadline longer because not a lot of foster youth knew about it.”
Torrez said foster youth have already weathered difficult childhoods and most don’t have a family to fall back on. She said she was frustrated, but not surprised, by lawmakers’ failure to take action to help.
“These politicians need to really get it through their heads that youth need more help than what they’re getting right now,” she said.
Funding for foster youth at the state level is determined by age requirements. Some states have chosen to extend foster youth benefits past 18, typically up to 21. When the youth ages out, they lose access to those benefits.
Now with California’s extended moratorium set to end at the end of the year and with it cutting off support to thousands of foster youth, Johnson said the state’s counties are scrambling to find housing for all of the youth aging out, which is proving difficult. Transitional youth housing was hard to come by before; one study found the state’s waitlist had over 700 foster youth on it.
Taivon Payne, who turned 21 in March, is one of these so-called “cliff youth.” He’s been receiving a stipend of just over $1,000, which has allowed him to live in his own studio apartment and only work part-time. It’s been instrumental, he says, in allowing him to focus on his studies and athletics at community college, where he is majoring in communications.
The fear of losing the stipend is especially disheartening for Payne. Only recently has he gotten his life more on track after being homeless off-and-on for a couple of years after he turned 18.
“I wouldn’t be able to live in the place I am living without the support of the extended stipend,” he said. “It’s been a nice crutch as I am introduced into the adult world.”
