Children in Clark County, Nevada who transition out of the foster care system as adults are not prepared to meet their needs for housing at an alarming rate. This concern is described by Katz and Courtney (2015) as, “while young adults outside of the foster care system can lean on their parents for support in areas such as finance and housing, foster youth tend to enter independent life without prerequisite skills in these areas, without knowledge of resources available to them, and without familial support” (p. 9). The Casey E. Family Foundation finds that the cost of doing nothing to help this population results in a cost of $300,000 in social costs,” including public assistance, incarceration, and job loss due to dropout rates” (“Aging out in America,” 2013, p.1). As social workers, it is important that we are working with this population so that they can provide for themselves and their
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According to Osgood, Foster, and Courtney (2010), “even if the states allocated all of that funding to services for the approximately 25,000 youth who exit foster care each year to legal emancipation, the share going to each former foster youth between eighteen and twenty-one would be less than $2,000 (2010, p. 219). In a review of research completed by Fowler, Marcal, Zhang, Day, & Landsverk, it was observed that over one-third of aged-out 19-year-olds in California experienced homelessness, and in Washington 28% of youth experienced an episode of homelessness within 12 months of aging out of foster care (2017, p. 28). Research shows that in Nevada, at age 19, 15% of former foster youth had experienced homelessness, with that number climbing to 35% by the age of 21, comparing to the national rates of 20% and 27% respectively (“Transitioning age youth in foster care in Nevada,” 2017, p.
According to Osgood, Foster, and Courtney (2010), “even if the states allocated all of that funding to services for the approximately 25,000 youth who exit foster care each year to legal emancipation, the share going to each former foster youth between eighteen and twenty-one would be less than $2,000 (2010, p. 219). In a review of research completed by Fowler, Marcal, Zhang, Day, & Landsverk, it was observed that over one-third of aged-out 19-year-olds in California experienced homelessness, and in Washington 28% of youth experienced an episode of homelessness within 12 months of aging out of foster care (2017, p. 28). Research shows that in Nevada, at age 19, 15% of former foster youth had experienced homelessness, with that number climbing to 35% by the age of 21, comparing to the national rates of 20% and 27% respectively (“Transitioning age youth in foster care in Nevada,” 2017, p.