[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DISCONNECTED AND DISADVANTAGED YOUTH
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
of the
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 19, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-48
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
----------
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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
CHARLES B. RANGEL, New York, Chairman
FORTNEY PETE STARK, California JIM McCRERY, Louisiana
SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan WALLY HERGER, California
JIM McDERMOTT, Washington DAVE CAMP, Michigan
JOHN LEWIS, Georgia JIM RAMSTAD, Minnesota
RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts SAM JOHNSON, Texas
MICHAEL R. McNULTY, New York PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee JERRY WELLER, Illinois
XAVIER BECERRA, California KENNY C. HULSHOF, Missouri
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas RON LEWIS, Kentucky
EARL POMEROY, North Dakota KEVIN BRADY, Texas
STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES, Ohio THOMAS M. REYNOLDS, New York
MIKE THOMPSON, California PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut ERIC CANTOR, Virginia
RAHM EMANUEL, Illinois JOHN LINDER, Georgia
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon DEVIN NUNES, California
RON KIND, Wisconsin PAT TIBERI, Ohio
BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey JON PORTER, Nevada
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
KENDRICK MEEK, Florida
ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
Janice Mays, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Brett Loper, Minority Staff Director
______
Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support
JIM McDERMOTT, Washington, Chairman
FORTNEY PETE STARK, California JERRY WELLER, Illinois
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama WALLY HERGER, California
JOHN LEWIS, Georgia DAVE CAMP, Michigan
MICHAEL R. McNULTY, New York JON PORTER, Nevada
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
KENDRICK MEEK, Florida
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
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C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Advisory of June 12, 2007, announcing the hearing................ 2
WITNESSES
The Honorable John Yarmuth, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Kentucky.............................................. 6
The Honorable Michele Bachmann, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Minnesota......................................... 9
______
Jewel, Recording Artist.......................................... 14
Deborah Shore, Executive Director, Sasha Bruce Youthwork......... 20
DeCario Whitfield................................................ 28
Ronald B. Mincy, Ph.D., Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social
Policy and Social Work Practice, Columbia University School of
Social Work.................................................... 31
Martha R. Burt, Ph.D., Research Associate, Center on Labor, Human
Services and Population, The Urban Institute................... 36
Dan Lips, Education Analyst, The Heritage Foundation............. 46
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Center for Law and Social Policy, statement...................... 75
Greater Miami Service Corps, statement........................... 82
Honorable Ruben Hinojosa, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, statement...................................... 85
National Council For Adoption, statement......................... 87
National Human Services Assembly, statement...................... 89
National Network for Youth, statement............................ 92
National YouthBuild Coalition, statement......................... 96
DISCONNECTED AND DISADVANTAGED YOUTH
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room B-318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim McDermott
(Chairman of the Subcommittee), presiding.
[The advisory announcing the hearing follows:]
ADVISORY
FROM THE
COMMITTEE
ON WAYS
AND
MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INCOME SECURITY AND FAMILY SUPPORT
CONTACT: (202) 225-1025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 2007
ISFS-8
McDermott Announces Hearing on
Disconnected and Disadvantaged Youth
Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Income Security and Family Support of the Committee on Ways and Means,
today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on
disconnected and disadvantaged youth. The hearing will take place on
Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at 1:00 p.m. in room B-318, Rayburn House
Office Building.
In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral
testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. However,
any individual or organization not scheduled for an oral appearance may
submit a written statement for consideration by the Committee and for
inclusion in the printed record of the hearing.
BACKGROUND:
Approximately 2.3 million noninstitutionalized youth between the
ages of 16 and 24 have neither attended school, nor worked at anytime
over the last year according to the most recent data compiled by the
Congressional Research Service. Additionally, past studies suggest that
at least 1 million children between the ages of 12 to 17 experience
some period of homelessness every year.
A myriad of issues may lead to youth becoming detached from school
and work and/or becoming homeless, including poverty, inferior schools,
the lack of economic opportunity, racial discrimination, substance
abuse, teenage parenthood, interaction with the criminal justice
system, family instability and violence, and a difficult transition
from foster care. There are a number of programs that either
specifically or indirectly focus on disadvantaged and vulnerable youth,
but some experts have suggested the overall response is fragmented and
serves only a fraction of those in need.
While the issue of disconnected youth is not new, the problem has
increased in recent years for certain groups. For example, the
percentage of African American men between the age of 20 and 24 who are
both out of work and out of school rose from 9.5 percent in 1998 to
14.1 percent in 2005. This rate would climb significantly if it
included young men who were incarcerated.
In announcing the hearing, Chairman McDermott stated, ``We cannot
afford to lose the productive talents of millions of our youngest
citizens who cannot find a place in the world of school and work. Nor
can we stand by as some of them go without the bare essentials of life,
starting with a place to call home. We need to search for a better way
to reconnect these youth to what so many of us take for granted.''
FOCUS OF THE HEARING:
The hearing will focus on disconnected, disadvantaged and homeless
youth.
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Chairman MCDERMOTT. The Committee will come to order.
Today we're going to talk about homelessness. There are too
many Americans out of school and out of work and out of their
homes and really out of luck, and it's time for America to pay
more attention, because we can make a difference and I believe
we really must make a difference.
In 2005 there were 2.3 million youths between the ages of
16 and 24 who did not work or attend school at any time. That's
a lot of kids. Estimates for the number of homeless youth are
more dated and more varied, but there are likely more than 1
million in any given year.
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the pathways
that lead to young people becoming detached from school, work
and housing. We also hope to learn about both existing and
potential programs designed to help prevent and respond to
homelessness and separation from school and work.
Both our hearts and our heads should propel us toward
improving our outreach to these young Americans. The thought of
a teenage person confronting homelessness or pondering life
without hope should stir the emotions in all of us.
The reality that reconnecting youth will improve so many
other concerns confronting our nation illustrates the wisdom of
moving forward. Issues like long-term economic development,
crime, and poverty are all intertwined with the lives of these
young people.
None of this is meant to suggest that there's a simple
answer that will respond to all the needs of disadvantaged
kids. There are a variety of circumstances that might lead to a
young person becoming homeless or dropped out of the worlds of
school or work. Poverty plays a lead role but family
instability, teenage parenthood and many other factors also
contribute to the problem.
While the issue of disconnected youth is certainly not new,
data suggest the problem may be growing for certain groups,
especially young black men. Additionally the long-term costs of
dropping out of school may be higher than ever given the
premium the global economy places on education and skills.
There are some very helpful programs that reach out to
disadvantaged youth, one of which we'll hear about today.
However questions still linger about whether there are enough
of these programs, whether they address the myriad of new
challenges kids face today from higher housing costs to
declining manufacturing jobs and whether there is a way to tie
them together in a more systematic way.
Furthermore, there are certain broader policies related to
education and housing and making work pay that would likely
provide significant dividends for disadvantaged youth. Finally,
this Subcommittee takes special notice of the fact that youth
coming out of the foster care system, they've been in the
foster care system up to age 18, are suddenly dropped on the
street cold, and they are at a particular risk of being both
homeless and jobless. Our burden to help these kids is
especially high since the government has acted as their legal
parent. Your parents don't ordinarily shove you out of the
house at 18 with nothing, but that's basically what we do to
young people in the foster care system.
The Subcommittee will hold future hearings to look
specifically at that particular part of the issue. I would like
to now yield to the Subcommittee's ranking member, Mr. Weller.
Jerry.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
conducting this important hearing today. Today's hearing is on
disconnected youth. As we will hear, disconnected youth include
those who drop out of school, do not work and often end up in
the streets.
The very title ``disconnected youth'' begs the question how
are kids connected. The answer is two ways, through their
family and through their school. Kids are connected through
their family starting with the love and support of their
parents, and that goes beyond financial support to the deep
sense of belonging associated with being a son or daughter who
is loved, protected, and encouraged on the road of life.
As one of our witnesses puts it, we should all remain
mindful that strengthening families is the best way to prevent
the suffering and social disconnection among our young people.
I totally agree.
The second way kids are connected, especially as they get
older, is through their school. That really means through the
circle of friends, teachers, coaches and other mentors they
rely on as they become more independent and develop the habits
and skills needed for life on their own.
Think about kids who don't have both or even one of those
connections. Kids in foster care have been removed from their
own parents due to abuse and neglect. That's traumatic enough,
but now add in the fact that many foster children are bounced
not only from home to home but also from school to school.
A 2004 study of young adults in the Midwest found that over
a third of those who aged out of foster care reported having
had five or more school changes. Five or more school changes
for a group already separated from their parents, that's the
definition of disconnection.
Studies show high school students who change schools even
once are less than half as likely to graduate as those who
don't change schools. No wonder there is a 20 percentage point
difference between the high school graduation rates of foster
youth and their peers according to the group Kids Count, all of
which contributes to the often grim prospects for children of
foster care, especially those who spend the most time in care
and bounce from school to school and thus are the most likely
to drop out.
According to the Nonpartisan American Youth Policy Forum,
high school dropouts are substantially more likely to be
unemployed and on welfare. Youth who drop out are three-and-a-
half times more likely to be incarcerated during their
lifetimes. Those who work earn 50 percent less than those with
high school diplomas. Even the death rate for youth who drop
out of school is higher.
So, it seems to me we should be doing everything we can to
increase high school completion rates in general. For kids in
foster care who are already disconnected from their parents it
is especially important for them to stay connected to their
school including the friends, teachers and mentors they trust
and who know them.
I welcome the broader testimony we will hear today about
homelessness and the various funding sources beyond the scope
of this Subcommittee addressing that. I am very eager,
especially eager, to focus on what we can do within the foster
care system to increase the chances these already vulnerable
children at the very least get their high school diplomas.
Fortunately, as we will hear, there are good options some
states are already putting into effect. We should spread the
word and consider enacting Federal legislation that provides
more foster youth the opportunity to stay better connected to
their schools, to graduate and to create the foundation for
productive and happy lives.
I look forward to hearing all of today's testimony. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Other members are welcome to
make entries into the record, and without objection we will
accept them.
We're going to begin today by having a couple of Members of
Congress. It's very seldom that Members of Congress come and
ask to testify at something, so I want you to realize that this
is a unique event. Today John Yarmuth from the third
congressional district in Kentucky will begin, and he'll be
followed by Michele Bachmann from the sixth district of
Minnesota.
John.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN YARMUTH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY
Mr. YARMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McDermott, Ranking Member Weller and colleagues, I
appreciate the opportunity to testify today at this hearing on
disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, I, like
you, have a high level of interest in youth who are detached
from family, school, work and any sort of permanency. Our
missions are similar, and I look forward to finding common
ground where our Committees can work together to address the
life challenges of our nation's disconnected youth.
Before coming to Washington I volunteered a considerable
amount of time at organizations that work with disconnected
youth. We are fortunate in my hometown of Louisville to house
some of the finest services for disconnected youth in the
nation with the headquarters of the National Safe Place and
Boys' Haven.
There I saw firsthand the hardships and devastation
resulting from homelessness. My experiences with these agencies
and Kentucky's disconnected youth have served as a reminder
that homelessness is more than a collection of sociological and
economic data, as it sometimes ends up being viewed here in the
halls of Congress, but a myriad of human stories.
I am thankful that Jewel and DeCario Whitfield are here
today to share some of those stories with us, to help us
understand that of the 3 million children who run away or
experience homelessness each year, each one has a story of
abuse, physical, psychological or emotional, and each child is
in need of structure, stability and permanency.
Unfortunately, despite the superb work of organizations
across the country we are failing these children at every turn.
The funds and personnel to accommodate the bare necessities of
so many Americans in need have simply not been made available.
We must explore and implement measures to incentivize careers
that provide these badly needed services to our communities.
Last week in the Education and Labor Committee we adopted
an amendment to the College Cost Reduction Act that will
incentivize such work with $1,000 in loan forgiveness each year
for five years. I believe this measure is a good start, but
there is far more to do to build an infrastructure capable of
responding to the pandemic problem of disconnected youth.
As I have found working with Congresswoman McCarthy on the
reauthorization of the Runaway Homeless Youth Act, the story
gets much worse once one realizes that the failings are not
limited to just funding and personnel. The necessary
infrastructure is simply not in place.
The upside is that we are in a position to change that if
we focus our energy in the right areas. Luckily for us, the
deficiencies are glaring and practically begging us to step in.
For example, we have little to no ability to monitor success of
programs serving disconnected youth.
Homeless youth enter these systems temporarily and then
leave. There is currently no comprehensive system linking
juvenile courts, foster care, homeless shelters, schools,
hospitals and social service providers. So, we don't know where
they go and we don't offer services once they have gone. They
are simply out of the system, disconnected once more.
We must do more than just contain these little children
while we have them. They have come into the system lost,
reaching out, and we must set them on a path to adulthood
prepared for the workplace and ready for the world without
dragging the dead weight of a history of neglect.
They also face a hurdle that won't surprise anyone here
because it is consistent with one out of six Americans: no
access to health care. With our nation's disconnected youth, we
are talking about children often living in unsanitary
conditions, many the victims of abuse and all of whom are in
need of care.
At a minimum, we have an obligation to tend to the health
of these children through Medicaid or other means. Providing
health care to these 3 million American children cannot be
treated as an option any longer.
In my three-minute assessment of the failings in the area
of disconnected youth, the hurdles may seem insurmountable, but
we cannot let ourselves get so caught up in the distance we
have to go that we become too intimidated to take the next step
forward.
Ultimately, we need to consolidate our resources and
services for the disconnected so that they no longer get lost
in the system while seeking services. A homeless shelter can be
more than a place to stay and eat a meal. It can be a place to
access comprehensive services like health care, education,
economic assistance and job training. When these scattered
services can be found under one roof, we will truly be offering
a path to housing, employment and independence.
In our reauthorization of the Runaway Homeless Youth Act
we've taken steps to help children prepare for adulthood with
the transitional living program that teaches homeless 15 to 18
year olds life's basics: cooking, laundry, financial literacy
and the basics of finding a job.
The legislation also tackles the absolute basics with a
national switchboard to provide help by phone or e-mail to
those who need it, the Basic Center Program, that gives young
people a place to stay while they reintegrate with their
families and the Street Outreach Program that will very simply
make connections with kids on the streets.
It is my hope that our Committees can work together to make
a much stronger and broader impact by exploring the
possibilities of expanding temporary assistance for needy
families to include disconnected youth who have children, fully
utilizing the Social Service Block Grants to fund organizations
that help foster children and runaways and ensuring that
children are tapping into Federal welfare services that will
help these young Americans prepare to face the world.
As we move forward together on issues facing disconnected
youth, I hope we all feel not only the urgency to act but that
we also share a sense of optimism for what we can accomplish
together on behalf of youth in every corner of America. I look
forward to the reauthorization of the Runaway Homeless Youth
Act, the findings of this hearing and future progress we make
in this institution. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yarmuth follows:]
Prepared Statement of The Honorable John Yarmuth,
a Representative in Congress from the State of Kentucky
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today at this hearing on
Disconnected and Disadvantaged Youth. As a member of the Education and
Labor Committee, I, like you, have a high level of interest in youth
who are detached from family, school, work, and any sort of permanency.
Our missions are similar, and I look forward to finding common ground
where our committees can work together to address the life challenges
of our nation's disconnected youth.
Before coming to Washington, I volunteered a considerable amount of
time at organizations that work with disconnected youth. We are
fortunate in my hometown of Louisville to house some of the finest
services for disconnected youth in the nation with the headquarters for
National Safe Place and Boys' Haven. There, I saw first hand the
hardships and devastation that comes as a result of homelessness.
My experiences with these agencies and Kentucky's disconnected
youth have served as a reminder that homelessness is more than a
collection of sociological and economic data--as it can sometimes seem
here in the halls of Congress--but a myriad of human stories. I am
thankful that Jewel and DeCario Whitfield are here today to share some
of those stories with us, to help us understand that of the three
million children who runaway or experience homelessness each year, each
one has a story of story of abuse: physical, psychological, or
emotional. And each child is in need of structure, stability, and
permanency in their lives.
Unfortunately, despite the superb work of the organizations I named
and others such as the National Network for Youth and Alliance to End
Homelessness--the system is failing these children at every turn. The
funds and personnel to accommodate the bare necessities of so many
Americans in need are simply not available. We must explore and
implement measures that incentivize careers that provide these badly
needed services to our communities. Last week, I introduced an
amendment to the College Cost Reduction Act that will incentivize work
in such areas with $1,000 in loan forgiveness each year for five years.
I believe that this measure is a good start, but there is far more to
do to build an infrastructure capable of dealing with a problem of this
magnitude.
As I found in my work with Congresswoman McCarthy and our work on
the reauthorization for the Runaway Homeless Youth Act, the story gets
much worse once one realizes that the failings are not limited to just
funding and personnel; the necessary services are simply not in place.
The upside is that we are in a position to change that if we focus our
energy in the right areas. Luckily for us, the deficiencies are glaring
and practically begging us to step in.
For example: We have little to no ability to monitor success.
Homeless youth enter these systems temporarily and then leave. We don't
know where they go, we don't offer services once they have gone, they
are simply out of the system--disconnected once more. We cannot be
content to simply contain these children while we have them. They have
come into the system lost, reaching out, and we must set them on a path
to adulthood prepared for the workplace and ready for the world,
without dragging the dead weight of a history of neglect.
They also face a hurdle that won't surprise anyone here because it
is consistent with one out of six Americans: No access to healthcare.
With our nation's disconnected youth we are talking about children
living in unsanitary conditions without guidance, many the victims of
abuse, and all of whom are in need of care. We have an obligation to,
at a bare minimum; tend to the health of these children, whether
through Medicaid or other means. Providing healthcare to these three
million American children cannot be treated as an option any longer.
In my three minute assessment of the failings in the area of
disconnected youth, the hurdles seem insurmountable . . . even to me.
But we cannot let ourselves get so caught up in the distance we have to
go that we become too intimidated to take the next step forward.
In our reauthorization, we've taken steps to help children prepare
for adulthood with a Transitional Living Program that teaches homeless
15 to 18 year-old to do the basics: cooking, laundry, learn financial
literacy and the basics of finding a job. It tackles the absolute
basics, with the National Switchboard to provide help by phone or email
to those who need it, the Basic Center Program that gives young people
a place to stay while they reintegrate with their families, and the
Street Outreach Program that will very simply make connections with
kids on the streets.
Likewise, our committees can work together on the next relatively
small but crucial steps: expanding Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families to include disconnected youth who have children, utilizing the
Social Service Block Grants to fund organizations that help foster
children and runaways, and ensuring that children are tapping into
federal welfare services that can ensure that when young Americans move
on from these services, they are truly ready to face the world.
As we move forward together on issues facing disconnected youth, I
hope that you are--like me--feeling the urgency to act, but also
optimistic for what we can accomplish together on behalf of youth in
every corner of America. I look forward to the reauthorization of the
Runaway Homeless Youth Act, the findings of this hearing, and future
progress we take in this institution. Thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you.
Ms. Bachmann.
STATEMENT OF MICHELE BACHMANN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Ms. BACHMANN. Thank you, Chairman McDermott, Congressman
Weller and members of the Subcommittee. I want to thank you for
inviting me to discuss the educational challenges that are
faced by disconnected and disadvantaged youth, specifically
foster children.
My name is Michele Bachmann. I'm a first term Member of
Congress, serving Minnesota's sixth district, and I have a very
special interest in the quality of education received by foster
children because, over the course of six years, my husband, who
is present here today, Marcus Bachmann, and my family cared for
23 treatment-level foster children in our home.
We are the lucky parents of five biological children, but
we feel that we were even more blessed by having 23 foster
children come into our home. When the children came to us, they
were not babies, Mr. Chairman, they were teenagers. They had
come through a number of horrendous experiences. Many of them
had been abused in many different ways.
They weren't your typical foster children. They were in
need of greater depth of services. Many of them had lived in
numerous homes throughout their lives and again had experienced
various levels of abuse. We were honored to be able to bring
these children into our home, Mr. Chair. What we saw is that
what these children needed more than anything was love,
acceptance and stability. While we were by no means a perfect
family one thing that we could offer to these children was just
a little bit of a picture of what the word normal looks like.
Here's a mom and a dad who love each other. Here is a
fairly regular schedule. Here's a mom who cooks a meal, a dad
who goes to work. This is what normal, a snapshot of normal
might look like for the life of a child.
We immediately enrolled our children in our local public
school system. We live in a nice suburban area of Minneapolis-
St. Paul, and we were glad to be able to have our children in
our local public schools system. Our biological children were
enrolled in a local private school with fairly low class sizes
and fairly low overall population in that school system.
Over the course of the years, our foster children often
would ask me if I would be willing to home school them.
Occasionally they asked if they could attend our children's
private school and we had to tell them, no, we were unable to
do that, that they needed to attend our local public school.
Again, our local public schools were good, but it was a new
experience and they often had 700 children in the graduating
class. Oftentimes, without exception our foster children all
had an IEP, an individualized education plan. Without
exception, they had a social worker assigned to them, a
counselor assigned to them. They did have support systems but
oftentimes they were in a situation where they were seen as
transient and temporary.
One thing that we wanted to give our foster children, Mr.
Chair and Members of the Committee was a sense of permanence
and a sense of stability so they could feel that, as they went
through their life there's something that they could count on,
that they could always come back to. We wanted to make sure
that they had that. Part of that--we know at the Federal level
there's the Chafee Program for foster students that goes to the
college level where students can attend a school of their
choice in this transitional period.
One thing that we would like to ask the Committee to look
at is the idea that there could also be a program available
specifically for foster children of all ages that would allow
for this possibility of choice for them as well so that they
could have this idea of stability. If their parents, their
biological parents would agree, if the social workers would
agree, if there might be an option, whether it's a public
school, a charter school, of which--my husband and I began a
charter school in our city; it's the oldest charter school in
the United States for K-12 at risk youth--or if they would
choose a private school so that they could--if they changed
homes they could still stay in the same school, so that they
could have that sense of stability.
We still stay in communication with our foster children. We
are grateful to say that all of our foster children, all 23 are
doing well. They've graduated from high school. One of our
foster daughters today is in college and plans to get her PhD.
This is the same foster child who said to me when she was
enrolled in our public school, ``you know, Mom, I was put into
stupid people math.'' One thing that she felt is that, because
she was seen as a temporary student she was put in lower level
classes that weren't up to her ability. This is a student today
who's planning to go for her PhD.
We believed in her. My husband and I loved her, as I'm sure
many foster parents have done for their foster children, but
what we want to do is to make sure that the potential in every
child is fully realized, and I know that the Committee shares
that same goal. We want to be able to do that, bringing and
creating a life of stability and choice for every foster child
just as our five biological children had that same opportunity.
We want to make sure that's available for our foster children
as well.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chair. It's obvious that you have
a heart of gold and that the members of this Committee do as
well--that we can work together and try to do something really
good for America's foster children. I thank you. I thank the
members of this Committee.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bachmann follows:]
Prepared Statement of The Honorable Michele Bachmann,
a Representative in Congress from the State of Minnesota
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Weller, and members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for inviting me to discuss the educational challenges faced
by disconnected and disadvantaged youth; specifically foster children.
I am Michele Bachmann, a first-term Member of Congress serving
Minnesota's Sixth District. I have a special interest in the quality of
education received by foster children because over the course of six
years, my family cared for twenty-three high-need teenagers through the
Lutheran Social Services' Treatment Foster Care program.
I believe every child deserves the chance to gain a high-quality
education. Growing up, I attended public schools where I was taught
using a rigorous curriculum despite the fact that my community was not
particularly affluent. While I was in school, my parents divorced and
almost overnight my stable, middle-class family was changed forever.
Although times were extremely tough, whenever my three brothers and I
would become frustrated my mother would tell us to concentrate on our
schoolwork, because no matter what happened, no one could ever take our
education away from us. She was right--I left my public high school
with a quality education and went on to graduate from college, then law
school, and finally to earn an L.L.M. in tax law.
Years later, when my family began to take in foster children, I
felt that although our circumstances were very different, I could
identify with their pain and frustration. All of them had challenges
considered serious enough that they were unable to be placed through
the traditional county foster care systems, and our family's role was
to provide them with a safe home and see them through to their high
school graduations.
We quickly learned that our foster children had very different
needs than most children. Almost all of them had been given
Individualized Education Plans--individual plans designed for students
with special educational needs. Many of the kids had been under the
care of counselors, many suffered from eating disorders, and others had
difficult behavioral or learning issues. All of them had switched
schools at least once, and as a result of their tumultuous home lives,
none of them had very strong educational backgrounds.
While through the years some of our foster children performed
better in school than others, my husband and I noticed some common
problems. Many times, we got the impression that the kids were seen by
both their peers and their teachers as if they were only going to be
there short term. Although their teachers were welcoming, little
special attention was provided to ensure that they caught up to their
classmates, and their other needs were often not considered because
there were so many other students to attend to. They became small fish
swimming in a very large pond.
We also began to notice that not all of our foster children were
presented with the quality of coursework we had thought they would
receive. Many of them were placed in lower-level classes, as if they
were not expected to succeed. One of the kids remarked to me once that
she was in ``stupid people math.'' Another brought home an 11th grade
math assignment that involved coloring a poster. Yet another told me
she had spent an entire week of classes watching movies, and others
were being selected for the ``School to Work'' program, in which high
school students attended classes for half of the day and were then sent
to work minimum-wage jobs at local businesses. Although it had been
evident to us from the beginning that because of their backgrounds, our
foster children were going to struggle in school, it was frustrating to
see that rather than being given the leg up they needed, so many of
them felt that they were being left behind. Unfortunately, national
studies indicate that this is an extremely common experience for foster
children.
What made this experience so heartbreaking is we could clearly see
that despite our wishes, our foster children did not get the same
opportunities or attention that our biological children received in
their school. Our biological children's classes were smaller and more
rigorous, the teachers knew all of the students, the students knew each
other, and parents were able to be much more involved in their
children's educations--all goals which are not always attainable in a
large school, but which could have done wonders for our foster
children.
As a result of these experiences, I believe it is imperative that
Congress examine creating a federal school choice program for foster
children, through which foster parents are given the option to place
children in their care in either a public or private school long-term,
depending on their specific needs. Such a plan would allow foster
children requiring more individual attention to attend a school better
equipped to help them. Just as important, for the first time in their
lives, these children who have become so used to being uprooted would
have the chance to be placed in an environment where they could have
their special educational needs met and feel as if they belong, where
they could remain enrolled even if their homes changed.
Currently, the federal government operates a program for older
foster children--the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program--which
assists them in transitioning from foster care to life on their own.
Among other things, the Chafee Program provides vouchers of up to
$5,000 to foster children ages 16 through 18 for education and
training. Congress should consider extending this voucher program to
foster children of all ages, so foster parents are able to best meet
the educational needs of the children in their care by either allowing
them to choose a private school or providing them with the funds
necessary to transport their children to their original school even if
it is outside of their immediate area.
Additionally, Congress should consider extending the extremely
successful D.C. school choice program aimed at low-income students,
which has drawn more than three times the number of applications as
there are available spots. Creating a similar program to serve D.C.
foster children as well as those who come from low-income families
would be an important step in the direction of giving the option of
school choice to all foster children.
In closing, even if placed in the best families, foster children
often face the possibility that they will have to change homes, and as
a result they must find a safe place of their own where they can become
accepted and gain a sense of stability. Although for many foster
children school can be such a place, the cases of many others show that
under the current system, this is not always possible. I hope my
family's experiences highlight the special challenges facing foster
children as well as the need for an examination of whether limiting
their educational options is truly in their best interests. I thank the
Subcommittee for holding this hearing, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Congressman Weller, and Subcommittee Members for the opportunity to
share our story today.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. Weller will inquire.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Bachmann, you elaborated in your testimony regarding
some of your observations regarding education for children.
First, let me just say, God bless you; that's a houseful over a
lifetime, and we really, really want to thank you for the
leadership you have shown on issues affecting foster children
and also that you've demonstrated so much love and so much
compassion, offering children an opportunity for a better life.
I commend you for that.
I had mentioned in my opening statement that there was a
study in the Midwest--and you represent Minnesota, I represent
Illinois, we're Midwestern states--that over a third of those
who aged out of foster care reported having five or more school
changes. What has been your experience with children that
you've provided a home for and the number of schools that they
may have attended before they became part of your family and
some of the transitions and challenges they had, leaving
friends, leaving their peers and starting over again?
Ms. BACHMANN. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Weller, you're
exactly right, those are tremendous challenges. Since we were a
treatment foster care home, which means we took in children who
were considered more difficult than foster children out of a
regular county system, we had children placed in our home from
all across the State of Minnesota. In fact, I think we may have
had one or two come to us from the State of Wisconsin, if I
remember, that were placed in our home. They had been through
numerous homes.
We had some identifying features. Almost none of our
children had a father in their life. That was one thing that we
could offer, but they had many, many school experiences. So,
not to berate the public schools in any way, many foster
children's experience is that they do tend to be at the lower
achieving end because they've transitioned from school to
school to school, and what one school may be studying at one
time of the year may have nothing to do with what another
school may be studying that a child has transferred into. So,
there's not this level of continuity.
We also saw, from a number of the biological mothers whose
foster children we were privileged to care for, they were also
concerned about different aspects of the child's background,
that they be able to have their values honored or upheld. So,
we did have different foster mothers ask us if their children
could attend our children's private school for instance, and we
were unable to do that. We were prohibited from doing that.
Even if we felt that we could afford the cost ourselves
financially, that was not an option to allow foster children to
be placed into the private schools.
Mr. WELLER. So, the program prevented you from----
Ms. BACHMANN. The program prevented us from placing the
children either in a home school situation or in a private
school situation.
We had children who graduated from high school and who
remained with us because they just simply were not ready. I
know the Chairman had made some remarks about some children,
and yourself I believe made remarks that at age 18 they aren't
necessarily ready and able to stand on their feet.
So, we did have--not all of the children but we had several
children that we kept in our home and worked with over a period
of time to help them gain the skills necessary so they could
truly be independent. We've continued to this day to maintain
contact with some of our foster children so that we can
continue to offer that level of support.
Mr. WELLER. As a follow up, many of these children, do they
participate in special education programs? Are they in other
programs in the school?
Ms. BACHMANN. Yes, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Weller, our
foster children were in special education programs. They were
also in regular classrooms as well, but again, one of our
foster daughters who had made the comment to me, ``Mom, I've
been put in stupid people math,'' also came home and told me
that in her math class, for instance, in eleventh grade, she
was coloring posters, she wasn't learning math.
In some classes she was watching feature length films all
week. She wasn't doing academics. I was very concerned.
Personally I had come out of a middle class home, and my
parents were divorced when I was in junior high. Over night,
financially we were below the poverty level, and I think that's
why my heart was pricked to take in foster children. I knew
what it had been like to be middle class. I knew what it had
been like to be in a poverty situation, and I was very
concerned that my foster children would have great academic
opportunities in order to make something out of themselves.
Coming from a below poverty background, because we had a
decent public school system I was able to work my way through
college, work my way through law school, work my way through a
post-doctorate in tax law and be able to support myself. If
anyone needs a leg up in life, it is foster children. I can
tell you that from personal experience.
That's why I want to make sure that we offer every
parameter of opportunity to these great kids. They are really
great kids. They just want to know someone loves them, someone
cares for them, someone will be there to hold their back. Any
amount of stability that we can offer these kids will go miles
down the road for their future lives.
Mr. WELLER. We've run out of time here but I also add, it's
clear that these children also suffer from the disadvantage of
low expectations.
Ms. BACHMANN. Yes.
Mr. WELLER. When they're placed in schools because of their
circumstances people expect them to be able to perform less
well as other kids, that's a disadvantage they also have to
overcome. So, again, thank you for your commitment and taking
care of so many kids and helping give other children
opportunities.
Ms. BACHMANN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you both for coming. We will see
you again.
Our next panel will come up to the table. A group of people
here, some who are working in homes for the homeless and some
are people who have experienced the whole nine yards. We will
begin with a young woman who has had the experience personally
and we'll let her tell her own story. Jewel.
You want to push the button and put yourself in live.
STATEMENT OF JEWEL KILCHER, RECORDING ARTIST
Ms. KILCHER. How's that? You'd think I could work a
microphone.
Chairman McDermott, Ranking Member Weller and members of
the Subcommittee, thank you for allowing me to appear before
you today on behalf of those who otherwise have no voice,
America's homeless, disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
The issue of homeless youth is complicated by
misperceptions about why kids become homeless. Many of us here
today have probably seen youth homelessness but really didn't
realize that it was staring us in the face. Maybe you walked by
a kid who was sitting on a bench and rather than thinking he
was homeless or someone who was forced into prostitution in
order to make enough money to eat every day, you thought he
looked like maybe just a punk kid who ditched school and was
waiting for his friends.
You really have to consider what being homeless is like for
a few confused, long and lonely days. The experience doesn't
just last for a few days for most people. Consider spending
years on the streets after being kicked out of your house by an
abusive alcoholic mother. Consider being in foster care where
your new foster parents don't seem to care whether you're there
or not and never asked you what you need.
What if the home you've been placed in is abusive and
dysfunctional? You may either run away because no one seems to
care or you are told at age 18 you have to leave because you
are too old for foster care. There are no resources available
to you and you are now homeless.
Think about your children or grandchildren. Think for a
second about a 12-year-old girl. What if her first sexual
experience didn't come at a time of her choosing but after an
uncle touched her and made her keep it a secret? Then the
secret is exposed, the truth spirals out of control, forcing a
needlessly ashamed and frightened girl onto the streets.
These girls and boys do not choose to live on the streets
or be homeless. It is the sad truth that they feel safer there.
What is equally troubling is that many Americans look at
someone's being homeless as the result of a choice he or she
made, that they are lazy or that it is just a correctable
condition because the United States is the land of so much
opportunity.
These are just a few of the reasons why I do not believe
America's homeless youth population is made up of kids who
leave home because they want to. Most homeless kids are on the
streets because they have been forced by circumstances to think
that they are safer there than in any home they once knew.
Others may have reached the end of their economic resources or
those of their family and are left trying to get out of poverty
from the disadvantageous position of America's streets.
I experienced homelessness firsthand. I moved out when I
was 15 years old. I worked several jobs. I wasn't a lazy kid.
It was just I thought I could do a better job than my parents.
I was able to get a scholarship to a performance arts high
school and was able, while being homeless, to still go to a
good school. Spring breaks were hard vacations. I would end up
just hitchhiking around the country and street-singing for
money because they wouldn't let you stay on campus during the
breaks.
After many twists and turns I ended up in San Diego when I
was 18, and I had a series of dead-end jobs and finally one
boss fired me because I wouldn't have sex with him and he
wouldn't give me my paycheck that day. My rent was due and my
landlord kicked me out.
I thought, I'll just stay--I had a little $200 car that a
friend let me use--and I just slept in my car for the day, and
it ended up lasting about a year. I was really sick at the
time. I had sick kidneys and was turned away from every
emergency room that there was to the point where you'd get
blood poisoning because your kidneys weren't working, and I'd
be throwing up in my car and nobody would help.
This lasted for about a year and I was able to finally get
out. I'll never forget. Record labels started coming to see me.
I was singing in a coffee shop. I wrote music just to help
myself feel better, and it seemed to make other people feel
better, and they started coming to my shows.
Atlantic Records was going to come see me, and I was so
excited. I went to Denny's where I always washed my hair in a
little shallow sink. I had to fit my head in sideways and use
the hand soap to wash my hair and I was using paper towels to
dry it off. I was humming to myself because I was so excited
that a record label was coming to see me.
I looked up in the mirror and there were two women backed
up against the wall and they were horrified. They looked at me
just like I was a leper. I suddenly got really embarrassed
because I realized what I was and what I looked like to them.
As they walked out, the one woman said to the other, ``well,
she looked pretty enough; I wonder how she ended up like
that.''
I wanted to tell them so bad, ``you're wrong about me. I'm
an okay kid and a label is coming to see me.'' It ended up
working out for me.
Some research estimates that about 1 million to 1.6 million
youth experience homelessness each year. I personally would
guess the number is higher. The number of kids turned away from
shelters every day as well as the number of phone calls made to
the National Runaway Hotline indicates some that it may be even
higher.
Unfortunately, homeless kids are running from something,
and that makes them difficult to find or to count as part of
any single community. What is clear is that life in a shelter
or on the streets puts homeless kids and youth at a higher risk
for physical and sexual assault, abuse, and physical illness,
including HIV/AIDS.
As I heard in testimony earlier, with education--I was
never taught grammar, which is odd because I'm a writer and I
now make my living as a writer. Every time they were teaching
grammar at a school I just either showed up just after they
finished the classes or just before they were starting and then
I was gone again. I went to probably ten different schools
between the ages of eight and sixteen, so it really is true.
Estimates suggest that 5,000 unaccompanied youths die each
year as a result of assault, illness or suicide. That is an
average of 13 kids dying every day on America's streets.
I was talking with--earlier who has an amazing story and
amazing accomplishment. People prey on you. They know. I've
never been solicited more and approached more than when I was
homeless. I grew up bar singing, so you'd think it would be
hard to top, but when I was homeless you're constantly being
solicited, and I knew a lot of girls who were stripping and
prostituting because it was really the best solution they had
for making money.
Anxiety disorders, as you can imagine, depression, Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder and suicide are all more common among
homeless children. Previous studies of the homeless youth
population have shown high rates of parental alcohol and drug
abuse. Substance abuse however is not characteristic; it
doesn't define most youth who experience homelessness.
Despite all of the setbacks faced by homeless kids there is
room to be optimistic. Most homeless children tend to try and
make it to school. Most do make it to school at least for a
period of time. If safe shelters, counseling and adequate
support were available for these kids and if our schools and
our job training programs were stronger, these children would
be given opportunities to graduate high school and build the
skills they need to go on to live healthy and productive lives.
It's funny, my boyfriend of nine years laughed when he met
me because he always said I could end up in Wisconsin if I
needed to on a shoestring with a stick of gum, but I didn't
know how to do laundry when he met me. You know, I didn't know
how to do really simple functional things.
You need to be taught that. You just aren't taught those
things. You don't realize that that's what your parents are
supposed to be teaching you.
As I prepared to be here today I learned Congress is taking
steps in the right direction this year by increasing the level
of Federal support for homeless youth-related programs. I
understand the House of Representatives is poised to pass a $10
million increase for Runaway and Homeless Youth Act programs,
and a $5 million increase for education of homeless children
and youth programs.
This anticipated funding increase is crucial. I cannot tell
you enough, support for shelters and transitional living and
housing programs is necessary if we are going to change the
landscape for homeless boys and girls in America.
Regrettably, I do also understand funding for street
outreach programs may not receive an increase in funding this
year. What I know about street outreach is that it is essential
to dealing with the issue of youth homelessness.
We need people who work hard to find these kids and point
them toward help because we know that they will not be looking
for adults; adults most likely contributed to their situation
in the first place. When they do seek help from adults, the
system, police, they're just opening themselves up to be harmed
and exploited or arrested again.
I am passionate about the work in this area by Virgin
Mobile USA and its RE*Generation movement in supporting the
homeless youth street outreach programs of StandUp For Kids and
awareness building efforts by Youth Noise. The RE*Generation is
also supported by Virgin Unite, the Virgin Group's charitable
arm, created by Sir Richard Branson.
The fact is that businesses and organizations working
together are crucial to the success of Federal programs, and
broader support in this area is desperately needed.
I would like to thank Congress for its help in raising
awareness of issues surrounding homeless youth by introducing
resolutions that designate November as National Homeless Youth
Awareness Month. I look forward to their passage so we can all
make November a success by demonstrating to these forgotten
youth that Congress is listening, people do want to help and
that people care about their futures.
Today is an opportunity to discuss important problems
facing families and children across the country. As you begin
examining ways to prevent youth homelessness, improve
community-based intervention programs that support families and
older adolescents and assist youth aging out of foster care, it
is my hope that your job becomes easier once the problem is
absorbed into the consciousness of the American people.
This country has to stop looking in the other direction on
these most heart-wrenching and complex issues facing America's
youth. Through greater awareness people will view this as a
problem with solutions. We must all work together to end youth
homelessness in America.
I am pleased to be here today, and I will do my best to
answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kilcher follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jewel, Recording Artist
Chairman McDermott, Ranking Member Weller, and members of this
Subcommittee, thank you for allowing me to appear before you today on
behalf of those who otherwise have no voice--America's homeless,
disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
The issue of homeless youth is complicated by misperceptions about
why kids become homeless. Many of us here today have probably seen
youth homelessness but didn't realize it was staring us in the face.
Maybe you walked by a kid who was sitting on a bench, and rather
than thinking he was homeless, or someone who was forced into
prostitution in order to make enough money to eat everyday, you thought
he looked like a punk kid who ditched school and was waiting for his
friends.
Consider being homeless for a few confused, long and lonely days.
Consider spending years on the streets after being kicked out of home
by an abusive, alcoholic mother. Consider being in foster care where
your new foster parents don't seem to care whether you're there or not
and never ask you what you need. What if the home you have been placed
in is abusive and dysfunctional? You may either run away because no one
seems to care, or you are told at age 18 you have to leave because you
are too old for foster care. There are no resources available to you
and you are now homeless.
Think about your children or grandchildren. Think for a second
about a 12-year-old girl. What if her first sexual experience didn't
come at a time of her choosing, but after an uncle touched her and made
her keep it a secret. Then, the secret is exposed and the truth spirals
out of control, forcing a needlessly ashamed and frightened girl onto
the streets.
These girls and boys don't choose to live on the streets or to be
homeless. It is the sad truth that they feel safer there. What is
equally troubling is that many Americans look at someone's being
homeless as the result of a choice he or she made, or that it is a
correctable condition because the United States is the land of so much
opportunity.
There are numerous causes and effects of youth homelessness. Thirty
percent of shelter youth and 70% of street youth are victims of
commercial sexual exploitation at a time in their lives when these boys
and girls should be going to elementary school.
These are just a few of the reasons why I do not believe America's
homeless youth population is made up of kids who leave home because
they want to. Most homeless kids are on the streets because they have
been forced by circumstances to think that they are safer there than in
the home they once knew. Others may have reached the end of their
economic resources, or those of their family's, and are left trying to
get out of poverty from the disadvantageous position of America's
streets.
I experienced homelessness first-hand. When I was 15 years old, I
received a vocal scholarship to attend Interlochen in Michigan. I
always enjoyed performing solo, and one Spring Break I took a train and
hitchhiked in Mexico, earning money singing on street corners. Many
twists and turns later, I moved to San Diego and because of a series of
unfortunate events, I ended up living in a car. My car was then stolen
so I had to borrow $1,000 from a friend to buy a van which ended up
becoming my home. Living in a van was not romantic. I washed my hair in
public bathroom sinks. People would often gawk and make comments about
me. They would say how sad it was that I was homeless, but many more
tried to pretend that I wasn't there. I was mortified and embarrassed
of my condition, and the stigma that was being attached to me. I can
assure you that kids do not want to be on the streets or without people
who care about them.
Some researchers estimate that about 1 to 1.6 million youth
experience homelessness each year. The number of kids turned away from
shelters every day as well as the number of phone calls made to the
National Runaway Hotline indicate some estimates that may be even
higher. Unfortunately, homeless kids are running from something and
that makes them difficult to find or to count as part of any single
community.
What is clear is that life in a shelter or on the streets puts
homeless youth at a higher risk for physical and sexual assault, abuse,
and physical illness, including HIV/AIDS. Estimates suggest that 5,000
unaccompanied youths die each year as a result of assault, illness, or
suicide; that's an average of 13 kids dying every day on America's
streets.
Anxiety disorders, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and
suicide are all more common among homeless children. Previous studies
of the homeless youth population have shown high rates of parental
alcohol or drug abuse. Substance abuse, however, is not a
characteristic that defines most youth who experience homelessness.
Despite all of the setbacks faced by homeless kids, there is room
to be optimistic. Most homeless children tend to make it to school, at
least for a period of time. If safe shelters, counseling, and adequate
support were available for these kids, and if our schools and our job
training programs were stronger, these children would be given
opportunities to graduate high school and build the skills they need to
go on to live healthy and productive lives.
As I prepared to be here with you today, I learned Congress is
taking steps in the right direction this year by increasing the level
of federal support for homeless youth-related programs. I understand
the House of Representatives is poised to pass a $10 million increase
for Runaway and Homeless Youth Act programs and a $5 million increase
for Education of Homeless Children and Youth programs. This anticipated
funding increase is crucial. Support for shelters and transitional
living and housing programs is necessary if we are going to change the
landscape for homeless boys and girls in America.
Regrettably, I also understand funding for street outreach programs
may not receive an increase in funding this year. What I know about
street outreach is that it is essential to dealing with the issue of
youth homelessness. We need people who work hard to find these kids and
point them toward help, because we know they won't be looking for
adults. Adults most likely contributed to their situation in the first
place. When they do seek help from adults, the system, or a police
officer, they are opening themselves up to being harmed, exploited, or
arrested--again.
I am passionate about the work in this area by Virgin Mobile USA
and its RE*Generation movement in supporting the homeless youth street
outreach programs of StandUp For Kids and awareness building efforts by
YouthNoise. The RE*Generation is also supported by Virgin Unite, the
Virgin Group's charitable arm created by Sir Richard Branson. The fact
is that businesses and organizations working together are crucial to
the success of federal programs, and broader support in this area is
desperately needed.
I would like to thank Congress for its help in raising awareness of
issues surrounding homeless youth by introducing resolutions that
designate November as ``National Homeless Youth Awareness Month''. I
look forward to their passage so we can all make November a success by
demonstrating to these forgotten youth that Congress is listening,
people do want to help, and that people care about their futures.
Today is an opportunity to discuss important problems facing
families and children across the country. As you begin examining ways
to prevent youth homelessness, improve community-based intervention
programs that support families and older adolescents, and assist youth
aging out of foster care, it is my hope that your job becomes easier
once the problem is absorbed into the consciousness of the American
people. This country has to stop looking in the other direction on
these most heart-wrenching and complex issues facing America's youth.
Through greater awareness, people will view this as a problem with
solutions. We all must work together to end youth homelessness in
America.
I am pleased to be here today and I will do my best to answer any
questions you may have. Thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much.
Ms. Shore is the executive director of Sasha Bruce
Youthwork here in Washington, D.C. I did not say earlier, the
full text of your remarks will be put in the record. We would
like you to try and keep it to 5 minutes so we have some time
to ask questions.
STATEMENT OF DEBORAH SHORE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SASHA BRUCE
YOUTHWORK, INC.
Ms. SHORE. I have tried to do that, thank you. Thank you,
Chairman McDermott and all members of the Subcommittee. This is
a wonderful opportunity today. My name is Deborah Shore and I
am the founder and executive director of Sasha Bruce here in
Washington, D.C. I am honored to offer the perspective of our
agency's dedicated counselors who work incredibly hard on
behalf of our city's disconnected youth population. I have
submitted written testimony which will provide greater detail
to my brief remarks today.
Please allow me to start by describing the work of our
agency. The mission of Sasha Bruce is to improve the lives of
runaway, homeless, neglected and at-risk youth and their
families in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. This year,
more than 1,500 of Washington, D.C.'s most troubled children,
teenagers and young adults will receive our assistance.
We began as a street outreach program in 1975, specifically
for homeless and runaway youth, but we have grown considerably
since then in response to service gaps not just for homeless
teenagers but to address the wide range of issues facing
disconnected young people, including those who have dropped out
or have been removed from school and older youth without
employment or secure housing. Today, our 14 programs are
financed through a mix of Federal and D.C. government dollars,
as well as considerable private sector support. We operate the
only youth-specific shelter in Washington, D.C., The Sasha
Bruce House. I am very honored to be accompanied today by Mr.
DeCario Whitfield, a current member and client of our Youth
Build Program.
I want to underscore how pleased I am that the leadership
of this Committee made the decision to call a hearing on the
issues and needs of the broad category of disconnected young
people. I believe you have correctly recognized that this is a
group of young people who defy our current structures, and for
whom solutions lay in creative, coordinated, new and targeted
initiatives. It is plain to us, working on the ground, that
coordinated efforts between social services, schools, health
care, employment and training, juvenile justice and child
welfare services are needed if we are to re-attach these youth
to school, training, the job market, families and community.
Our organization has been working with this broad category
of youth for a long time, and therefore we believe that we
bring a perspective useful to this Committee and to the
Subcommittee.
A variety of circumstances typically contribute to young
people becoming disconnected: difficulty with school, family
stresses and disruptions and the lack of intermediate
institutions, such as churches or nonprofit, community-based
agencies in young people's lives. Our experience is that the
number of disconnected youth is increasing. We are seeing it
everyday. Disconnected youth are those currently being served
as part of the important Runaway and Homeless Youth Act funded
programs but also are those youths who are entering the
juvenile justice system, coming back out of the juvenile
justice system, aging out of foster care, and quietly dropping
out of school with no connection to training or a means to
enter the workforce.
The current system of service funded through the Runaway
and Homeless Youth Act is the most responsive to this broad
population as it has both outreach, emergency shelter and
assistance with independent and community group living
programs. Some of these services, however, are limited to under
18 years so more responsive front-end services must be
available to youth who are both under and over 18 and who are
still struggling to be connected to a positive path toward
independence. Family services, individual strength-based
counseling and capacity to link youth to services is an
important first entry point and should be further strengthened.
These systems need to be strengthened and expanded to include
additional youth and to create greater capacity.
Also, the disconnection for many from school is a point
where intervention is paramount. Certainly, we know that for
many youth school and family issues are the two most common
reasons why they become homeless, get involved with the courts,
become pregnant, do drugs, which leads to much of the
negativity which is so much harder to sort out later. There is
a need for there to be greater connection between the social
service system and youth who are dropping out or at risk of
dropping out. The school systems must be urged to put a greater
priority on holding on to these youth in alternative school
settings and/or establishing vocational schools and providing
supplementary school services, including after school services.
Entering the workforce in this day and time, even with a
high school diploma, is daunting for many of our young people
and a great deal more needs to be done to construct workforce
development programs, which provide help to youth, including
those needing remedial assistance. It was clear that as part of
the recent report done by The Brookings Institution that
disconnected youth need to have targeted services available to
both proceed with their basic education and get job skills,
training and employment if they are to move into the middle
class and not simply into poverty. Youth Build in this report
was held up as a solid model of a program which should be
expanded as it has all the features of what is needed and has
proven to work.
As many people have mentioned already, youth who age out of
foster care and who re-enter the community from the juvenile
justice system are at high risk of becoming homeless and
disconnected. Some estimates are as high as 50 percent of all
former foster care youth become homeless at some point. These
populations in my view should be specially targeted as they are
at such high risk for continuing to be part of our
institutional service system.
In my written testimony, I gave the Committee benefit of
the alarming statistics about young people in D.C. and the grim
outcomes for them, which argue loudly for more leadership to be
taken toward reconnecting them to positive support systems.
D.C. has dramatic statistics but is by no means alone in having
so many disconnected youth in our country.
For this testimony, I would like to mention a few
additional risk factors, which need to be considered----
Chairman MCDERMOTT. May I ask you to sum up?
Ms. SHORE [continuing]. When constructing a program
response.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay?
Ms. SHORE. Health care issues, sexually transmitted
disease, teen pregnancy, health care in general, drug
involvement, I absolutely agree with Jewel that we are not
looking at young people who typically are involved in drugs
themselves but who are at risk of it and many of their parents
are drug involved. Violence is a major issue for the young
people that we see. The effort to combat gang violence is a
very important initiative that I think needs to be tied
together. Then, of course, the issue of housing and the issue
of being able to provide support to the entire family is of
critical importance.
I would just say that I agree that the increase in the
investment in the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act is critical. I
also would urge there to be a look that these programs can go
up to age 24 because under-18 year olds, there is no magic
number to the 18 age anymore. I would urge the increase in
resources to the Education of Homeless Youth, Children In Youth
Act, the Chafee Independence Living Program Act, and we
wholeheartedly support the National Network's Place to Call
Home Campaign, which is taking off shortly.
Thank you for this opportunity. I really appreciate and
hope to see some real change and development as a result of
this activity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Shore follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deborah Shore, Executive Director,
Sasha Bruce Youthwork
The mission of Sasha Bruce Youthwork is to improve the lives of
runaway, homeless, neglected and at-risk youth and their families in
the Washington metropolitan area. This year more than 1,500 of
Washington D.C.'s most troubled children, teenagers and young adults
will receive our assistance. Sasha Bruce Youthwork was one of the
original grantees of the landmark Runaway and Homeless Youth Act three
decades ago. Our Sasha Bruce House remains the only emergency shelter
for young people in the nation's capital.
We began as a street outreach project in 1974 specifically for
homeless and runaway youth. But we have grown considerably since then
in response to service gaps not just for homeless teenagers, but to
address the wide range of issues facing disconnected young people,
including those who have dropped-out or been removed from school and
older youth without employment or secure housing. Today our fourteen
programs are financed through a mix of federal and DC government
dollars, as well as considerable private sector support. These include
emergency shelter for runaway and homeless children; counseling within
homes and on the street; counseling in pregnancy prevention; AIDS and
substance abuse education; independent living programs for sixteen to
twenty one year olds; after-school programming and positive youth
development activities; an independent living and parenting program for
young mothers and their babies; two group homes for children in the
welfare system, one specifically for teen mothers; a service enriched
residence as an alternative to detention for teenage boys; practical
support for families leaving shelter or transitional housing; community
capacity building to prevent diseases among youth exiting the juvenile
justice system; and our Youthbuild Program, which involves classroom-
based GED preparation and building trade apprenticeships in partnership
with Habitat for Humanity specifically for high school dropouts.
SBY is the principal provider of services to runaway and homeless
youth, as well as this broader category of ``disconnected youth'' in
DC. Most youth-serving residential CBOs here limit access to those
young people referred for services by the juvenile justice and child
welfare systems. Thus, our shelter, transitional living and a host of
non-residential counseling projects represent primary avenues for the
non-system-involved, disconnected youth to receive barrier-free access
to supportive services. It is by virtue of this unique mix of
residential and non-residential ``safety net'' services for both
homeless youth, disconnected youth and system-involved youth that I
believe the perspective of our organization will be useful to Ways and
Means and to this Subcommittee, specifically.
I want to underscore how pleased I am that the leadership of this
Committee made the decision to call a hearing on the issues for and
needs of this broad category of ``disconnected young people.'' This
group of young people has needs which touch various existing systems
and which fall through the gaps in the educational, vocational and
service system. It is plain to those of us working on the ground that a
new, coordinated effort needs to be made to help re-attach these youth
to expanded and targeted systems of support if we are to reverse this
worrying trend. One of the important points to make here is that where
many systems which exist for youth have a cut off of age 18, the group
which we identify as disconnected youth must go up to age 24 as this
describes the group who are still in need of help entering the adult
world and who are clearly at risk without such assistance.
A variety of circumstances typically contribute to young people
becoming disconnected--whether it be from schools, or family support
systems, or intermediate institutions such as churches or nonprofit
community based agencies. All must be addressed if our adolescents are
to develop fully. However, several primary service areas stand out and
are most relevant to the work of responding to these young people.
Family supports and social services help cannot be understated. The
importance of programs which provide outreach and emergency shelter
like those funded under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act and other
prevention programs which help to identify youth before complete
disconnection from school, family and community are paramount. These
services need to be working closely with the school systems and with
the courts to identify youth before they have dropped out or gotten
into trouble with the law. According to the Ann E. Casey Foundation, in
2005 roughly 8% of DC youth between ages 16 to 19 were neither
attending school nor working. This is about 1000 disconnected
teenagers. Perhaps more troubling, 16%, or approximately 5,000 young
people 18 to 24 years old were neither attending school nor working.
Clearly, employment and educational gaps are large and much more needs
to be in place to respond to the needs which exist.
Assistance with schooling is also key, both to stay in school if
possible or to get an alternative education. Many of the youth who have
populated both the runaway and homeless youth system and the juvenile
justice system have as an underlying problem serious educational
issues. Whether because of the disruptions in their lives due to family
instability or undetected learning problems, missing out on a basic
education in this modern world is tantamount to being relegated to deep
poverty. At least in DC, there are few vocational education
opportunities and adult education programs needs to be seriously
expanded.
A workforce development plan and program targeted to disconnected
youth is essential if youth are to become reconnected. The Brookings
Institute did an analysis recently about how to reduce poverty locally
and recognized ``disconnected youth'' as a category which needs
targeted training along with social services and housing assistance as
the recipe for creating ways for people out of poverty. Social
services, health services, education, workforce development and housing
are the true building blocks of a solution to the constellation of
problems which lead to disconnection for youth.
In developing my thoughts for this testimony, it seemed important
to point out the primary risk factors which stand out and are most
relevant to solving the problem at hand. I have included the
information I have about the District which I think represents
dramatically some of the most intractable problems in our country and
so perhaps can lead the way to creative problem solving.
Poverty, Family Instability and Child Neglect:
In 2004, the District had one of the highest percentages of
children in the United States under age 18 living below poverty (34%
compared to 18% of children in the US). Family dissolution in DC is
most evident among low-income people living in East-side Wards 7 and 8,
where SBY operates several of its programs. These Wards are almost
exclusively African-American, have the lowest per-capita income and are
historically underserved. According to the Kids Count 2006, Wards 7 and
8 also have the highest crime rates and highest number of deaths among
children and youth, death to teens and teen murders. And these wards
have the highest rates for unemployment and for children receiving
TANF, food stamps and Medicaid. According to the Urban Institute, more
than 9,000 children receive TANF in Ward 8 alone--four times the rate
for other sectors of the city, and more than half of DC's poor children
live east of the Anacostia River.
These socio-economic indicators are primary risk factors for child
neglect and family dissolution in DC, and in other major cities in this
country. Other risk factors include a series of family-related factors
such as family management problems, poor parental discipline practices,
family conflict and social isolation. Other negative influences on
family stability include lack of services, adolescent problem behaviors
and academic failure. We need the full spectrum of federal government
agencies to acknowledge and address these inter-connected socio-
economic conditions as they develop public policy initiatives if we are
to decrease the number of young people who are homeless and
disconnected in our cities.
Housing:
Voluminous research evidences the severe lack of affordable housing
in DC relative to the number of families of modest or low incomes.
Several credible projections of affordable housing availability
indicate that DC's east side neighborhoods will continue to gentrify in
the coming years, regardless of recent stabilization of home prices
nationally.
While housing which is affordable for low-income families becomes
scarcer in DC, the demand for emergency shelter for homeless youth
continues to outstrip available capacity. It is difficult to determine
the number of runaway and homeless youth in the District of Columbia,
but knowledgeable estimates indicate that the problem is substantial.
The Homeless Services Planning and Coordinating Committee of the
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments takes an annual
``snapshot'' of homeless persons in order to quantify the problem. In
January 2006, the point-in-time count was 9,369, an increase of 4
percent from January, 2005. The DC Kids Count Collaborative, 13th
Annual Fact Book 2006, notes that homelessness in the District has
increased for the fifth consecutive year. Of the families applying for
shelter for the first time in 2005, an estimated 6,100 were children.
While the National Runaway Switchboard handled 1,327 calls from DC
youth in 2006, SBY's 24-hour emergency hotline during the past three
months fielded 234 crisis calls from youth, families, schools, service
agencies and police seeking our shelter services.
Education:
The administrative problems with DC public and charter schools are
well established, and correlate to low levels of academic achievement
compared to similar-sized cities. Poor educational outcomes represent
profound barriers to employment success, family stability and self-
sufficiency among our agency's current and future clientele.
While it is essential to improve the DC school system and to
provide under-performing youth with counseling and support services,
the realities of DC's education system and workforce are such that
there is a serious need for supplemental education services. In fact,
supplemental academic instruction coupled with positive youth
development activities, vocational training and civic engagement
opportunities need to be offered during after-school time in our young
peoples' neighborhoods if we are to have success in improving
educational outcomes throughout this country.
Some other important ancillary problems need to be addressed if
there is to be a full system of service in place.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Teen Pregnancy:
Our counselors estimate that nearly 75% of our youth are sexually
active and approximately half report having been sexually assaulted.
Many lack the experience of healthy intimate relationships,
infrequently attend school and the realities of dysfunctional
situations in many of their homes often prevent appreciation of healthy
dating behaviors. The belief that social acceptance can be realized
through sex (especially between young females and older males) is
widespread. Runaway, homeless and other street youth may take more
risks to survive, can be exploited sexually and are more prone to drug
experimentation because it often forms a significant part of the fabric
of street life. These risks are exacerbated by difficult political
circumstances facing homeless youth of color. Many are dealing with
emotional trauma from years of neglect. Few have the experience to make
the right choices in difficult circumstances. It is well established
that DC has the highest rates of HIV of any major US city. Our programs
focus primarily on DC Wards 6, 7, and 8, the city's poorest, east-side
neighborhoods, which have a high density of sexually active youth with
high rates of multiple sexual partners and low condom use. This risky
sexual activity is the most significant behavior that places our
clients at risk for HIV infection and other communicable diseases. It
should not be surprising that young people faced with these significant
health issues will have trouble prioritizing among life's many
challenges and will be more likely to fail at school or become
homeless.
This risky sexual activity also plays a large role in unwanted
teenage pregnancies. Despite some well documented improvements in the
past 2 years to once-astounding teen pregnancy rates, there continues
to be an urgent need for pregnancy prevention education among young
people in the District. The negative effects of adolescent childbearing
are well documented and compelling, for mothers, fathers and their
children. For example, 59% of women who have children before they reach
twenty do not have a high school diploma by the age of 30,\1\ and
almost half will begin receiving welfare within five years of having
their first child.\2\ Studies show that children of teenage mothers
have lower birth weights and are more likely to perform poorly in
school.\3\ Children born to mothers aged 15 or less are twice as likely
to be abused or neglected in their first five years than children born
to mothers aged 20-21.\4\ Also, the Annie E. Casey Foundation report,
When Teens Have Sex: Issues and Trends, found that fathers of children
born to teen mothers earned on average $3,400 less annually than
fathers of children born to 20- or 21-year-old women.\5\
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\1\ V.J. Hotz et al., ``The Impacts of Teenage Childbearing on the
Mothers and the Consequences of those Impacts for Government,'' in R.
Maynard (Ed.), Kids Having Kids (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press,
1997), pp. 55-94.
\2\ J. Jacobson and R. Maynard, Unwed Mothers and Long-Term
Dependency (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research).
\3\ Maynard, R.A., (Ed.). (1996). Kids Having Kids: A Robin Hood
Foundation Special Report on the Costs of Adolescent Childbearing, New
York: Robin Hood Foundation.
\4\ R.M. George and B.J. Lee, ``Abuse and Neglect of the
Children,'' in R. Maynard (Ed.), Kids Having Kids (Washington, DC:
Urban Institute Press, 1997), pp. 205-230.
\5\ Annie E. Casey Foundation, Kids Count Special Report: When
Teens Have Sex: Issues and Trends (Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey
Foundation, 1998).
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Drug Use:
It is a common and incorrect stereotype that homeless youth are
addicted to drugs. Our experience is that many homeless and
disconnected youth, like other youth, do use drugs, but the majority
are doing so in an ill-advised effort to survive day-by-day. In fact,
at Sasha Bruce Youthwork, it is far more typical for our young clients'
parents to be addicted. This is one reason, among many which I will
touch on later, that a holistic approach to engaging the entire family
in services is the most effective way to help children and youth.
This is not to say that drug prevention education and treatment for
young people and their families is not needed. In fact, nonjudgmental
education about psychoactive substances and their effects is the best
way to prevent their abuse among youth, and this is particularly the
case among those who have become involved--or are at greatest risk for
becoming involved--in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.
According to DC's Pre-Trial services, in February of 2006, 51% of
juvenile arrestees tested positive for drugs. And approximately 85% of
foster care placements in the District are reportedly due to substance
use, whether by the parent, guardian or child.
Violence:
According to the Casey Foundation's Kids Count 2006, the rate for
teen deaths in DC has skyrocketed by 40% in recent years. The majority
of these deaths may be reasonably attributed to violence perpetrated by
teens on other teens, almost exclusively African American teens.
Further, this youth-on-youth violence has been--and likely will
continue to be--concentrated in DC's poorest, East-side neighborhoods.
Violence among youth negatively impacts school attendance. In the
District in 2005, 16% of students were in a physical fight on school
property one or more times during the past 12 months (compared to 15%
in 2004). 9% of students did not go to school because they felt unsafe
at school or on their way to school on one or more of the past 30 days.
12% of students were threaten or injured with a weapon such as a gun,
knife, club on school property, one or more times during the past 12
months.
There is general acceptance that youth violence in DC can be
correlated with gang membership. The reasons for joining a gang include
the need for marginalized youth to feel accepted, the need for money,
or protection from other youth. Therefore, to address the rising tide
of violence in our communities, we will need to change these attitudes
and beliefs concurrent to engaging young people at highest risk for
violence and gang activity into positive alternative activities.
In addition to the core set of risk factors and problematic social
conditions described above, I would like to turn now to emerging issues
and service gaps here in DC, and which I believe are common elsewhere
in this country. Relevant to the Ways and Means Committee's purview,
three trends, or emerging issues, stand out and also should be
considered as we seek to prevent social disconnection and homelessness
among youth.
First of all, here in DC, and across the country, we must put
greater resources to address the growing problem of young people
``aging out'' of the child welfare system. According to the District's
Child and Family Services Agency, as of October 2006, 2,313 children
were in foster care and 1,681 children were enrolled in ``the system''
and living in their natural homes. These figures combined equal 2% of
all children and youth in DC, which is significantly higher than any
other jurisdiction. Importantly, youth age 12 and up make up about 61%
of the total foster care population--a number which many authorities
believe to be rising and which is extremely high compared to other
jurisdictions. These figures are causing many public policy officials
to call for alternatives to foster care placement (such as emergency
respite and ongoing family counseling prior to entry into the child
welfare system for young people who experience conflict at home) and
for a larger number of housing and options for young adults ``aging
out'' of the system, to name just two.
Second, the lack of affordable housing in DC and other major US
cities must be addressed if we are to improve the lives of
disconnected, urban youth. SBY oversees several transitional living
contracts with DC and federal government specifically for young people
who would be homeless otherwise. While it should remain the highest of
priorities to secure permanent housing for our clients upon exit from
these temporary residential programs, this is a particularly difficult
challenge in DC (and several other major cities), especially among
teenage and young adult populations, due to gentrification of
neighborhoods and high housing costs. And while DC and federal
government have been more apt in recent years to embrace new
initiatives for permanent housing, we must not lose sight of the urgent
and on-going need for emergency shelter and transitional living
programs for young people with no where else to turn.
The promotion of affordable housing must be tied to workforce
development targeted for DC's poorest communities if we are to have
real success in promoting educational and employment opportunities for
this city's disconnected youth. Martha Ross and Brooke DeRenzis of The
Brooking's Institute's Greater Washington Research Program recently
released a report Reducing Poverty in Washington DC and Rebuilding the
Middle Class from Within. It concludes with several recommendations on
how to help the city's low-income residents move into the middle class.
Specifically, we need to improve the city's workforce development
system and expand our education and training capacity, and the authors
argue convincingly for the expansion of sector-specific programs,
notably construction training, which would offer a greater number of
low-income residents access to good-paying employment. This
recommendation mirrors the objectives of our YouthBuild Program, which
links GED attainment to building trades apprenticeships. Ross and
DeRenzis also demonstrate the wisdom of enhanced programs for residents
with low reading and math skills concurrent to employment preparation,
as well as supported work for ex-offenders and out-of-school youth.
Third, I am happy to report that recent years in DC have seen an
increased commitment to funding community based alternatives to
incarceration for juvenile offenders. In DC in 2003, juveniles were
committed and detained at a rate of 625 per 100,000. This rate far
exceeds any other state in the nation and 90% of these youth were male,
and 81% were African American. In 2004, the DC Inspector General
released a report highlighting a number of deficiencies with the Youth
Service Administration, the agency responsible for juvenile detention
and rehabilitation, and recommended that the agency become a Mayoral
cabinet level position. Since that time a new Director, Vincent
Schiraldi, was appointed to the agency, which was renamed the
Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services (DYRS). Since Mr.
Schiraldi's appointment there has been a philosophical shift at DYRS,
including a commitment to decrease the number of youth incarcerated at
the District juvenile facility, Oak Hill, and a greater interest in
placing detained and committed youth in community residential and non
residential facilities.
In 2005, 1,228 youth were released from secure detention to
relatives and non-residential community programs. Given the entrenched
staffing and change-resistant bureaucracy of the juvenile justice
system in DC historically, this number of releases represents a
significant policy and operational shift (there were 1,006 releases in
2003 and 1,135 in 2004, respectively). The increasing number of young
people returning post-incarceration to DC communities is consistent
with DYRS's new direction and commitment to community placement. In
fact, DYRS has developed several new initiatives including a program
called REFAM (Return to Families), which is charged with providing
youth with less serious offenses with community-based individualized
plans.
Mr. Schiraldi believes that approximately 70% of youth at Oak Hill
are confined with nonviolent offences and should be targeted for REFAM.
DYRS has also recently begun funding community-based programs to
provide Evening Reporting Center and Intensive Third Party Monitoring
slots. This nascent movement to fund community alternatives to youth
incarceration in DC is a positive one for disconnected youth, their
families and our communities. Other cities would be well served to
implement similar initiatives for arguably the most disconnected of
youth--the so-called ``re-entry'' population.
There are two additional areas which I believe are urgent.
Specifically, we need to do more to prevent dating violence among youth
and to urge more positive sexual and social relationships and to
provide programs in all major cities which give youth who are drawn
into commercial sex work a way out.
There are several federal programs which support homeless and
disconnected youth. Yet these programs are small relative to the
problems I've described above and they need greater congressional
attention. I now would like to make several very specific suggestions
for federal policy.
Increase investment in the Runaway and Homeless Youth
Act to expand housing and supportive services and to intervene
and support homeless youth.
Increase resources to schools through the Education
of Homeless Children and Youth Act so that admission,
transportation and school supports are provided to homeless
youth and children.
Expand resources for youth aging out of the foster
care system through the Chafee Independence Living Act
Programs--these programs help find housing resources for foster
youth who don't have family ties and often end up homeless
after emancipation at 21 from foster care systems.
Promote cost-saving programs which emphasize
alternatives to juvenile incarceration. The Juvenile Justice
Delinquency & Prevention Act requires states to have early
intervention, prevention programs to divert youth from crime
and incarceration, yet there is inadequate funding to establish
these programs in many states.
Pass the Place to Call Home Act, a legislative
proposal of the national Network for Youth that is expected to
be introduced in Congress in July. The Place to Call Home Act
is a comprehensive legislative proposal to prevent, respond to,
and end runaway and homeless situations among youth through age
24. Enactment of the bill's provisions will have a decisive
positive impact for all disconnected youth, not solely youth
experiencing homelessness.
Increase investment in the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families Program. This is a vital account that states use to
establish prevention and early intervention supports for
families at risk of child removal from the home, and support to
homeless families.
Increase funding and supports for the Youthbuild
program so that serious expansion can occur for a model which
has proven effective and could do so much more.
Conclusion:
The lives of thousands of Washington children and those across the
country are impaired by severe poverty, disrupted families, teenage
pregnancy, inadequate schools, poor health care and violence. For many
children, the consequences of disintegrating families include parental
neglect or abuse. Instead of security, they face unsafe conditions in
their homes, schools and neighborhoods. Some are abandoned or have
little or no adult supervision. Too few of the young people at highest
risk for homelessness and family dissolution are offered positive youth
development activities which challenge them to achieve their highest
potential and to become engaged positively in their communities.
I prepared this testimony this past weekend, during Father's Day.
So it was bittersweet to consider this time of national familial
celebration while organizing my thoughts on all of the many ways that
young people become disconnected and disillusioned. Though it is with
sadness and regret, we all must acknowledge the lack of strong and
supportive families in our nation's poorest communities as a primary
symptom of malaise among the vast majority of our very troubled youth.
Whether the manifestations are dropping out of school or homelessness
or unemployment, we all should remain mindful that strengthening
families is the best way to prevent suffering and social disconnection
among our young people.
Engaging entire families--rather than individual youth--in all
services and supports whenever possible has been the operational
philosophy of Sasha Bruce Youthwork for three decades. This cannot be
over-stated. Through this testimony, I have endeavored to briefly
outline the many issues facing troubled youth today, and to offer some
recommendations, but I must emphasize the importance of approaching
this multi-faceted and complicated problem with a steady eye to
engaging entire families in trusting relationships that help them to
identify and to build on their competencies. Indeed, we see this
strength-based, family-focused approach as key to our success and it
should be a fundamental part of any neighborhood-based, local, state-
wide or national strategy to helping young people grow into healthy,
loving and responsible adults.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much.
Mr. Whitfield?
STATEMENT OF DECARIO WHITFIELD
Mr. WHITFIELD. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My
name is DeCario Whitfield. I am 19 years old and I am a student
enrolled in the Sasha Bruce Youth Build Program. I came to the
Youth Build Program after coming home from jail. I was locked
up at the age of 16 for armed robbery. There were a lot of
circumstances that led to this terrible time.
I was in high school. I was not getting the attention and
assistance that I needed from my teachers. I did not understand
any of the lessons, and I was constantly behind in my
assignments just because I could not understand. I was scared
to go to class because I knew I did not know the stuff. The
classes were out of order, the students were running the halls,
disrespectful to the teachers and each other. I was roaming the
halls, smoking weed to escape the misery of feeling stupid and
left behind. I could not wait for the 3:15 bell to ring.
Even though I lived with my grandmother, I did not have
guidance at home. Although I was not starving and had a roof
over my head, I was not getting attention from my family. My
father was doing a 10-year sentence in jail, and my mother was
running the streets too often to pay me attention. Her habit
kept her busy. I had nowhere to run or turn to for structure. I
led myself wherever I wanted to go. I was in charge of my life
even though I was not wise enough to make decisions for myself.
I lived in the ghetto where I saw people get shot, stabbed,
using drugs and getting robbed everyday. It was easy to follow
the crew and do the same thing.
After I was released, I was ashamed of the fact that I hurt
others. I was sentenced to three years in jail. I was sentenced
to a Title XVI sentence, when a 16 year old is being tried as
an adult. I was in D.C. Jail, Shelby Training Center in
Memphis, Tennessee, and the U.S. Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.
I was not going to get an education, a job or any kind of
direction and development in these places.
Then one day after serving 2.5 years of my sentence, I came
home. I was released to my family, the same family that did not
give the guidance that I needed in the first place. I was still
on my own again. I knew I needed to make a change. I found out
about the Sasha Bruce Youth Build Program while I was in jail.
I wanted to get my GED because I did not graduate from high
school. I wanted to be able to get a job so that I did not have
to hustle. I knew I needed some kind of skill and training.
I came home on a Friday. Ms. Tara from the Free Minds
Reading Book Club called Ms. Kym from the Sasha Bruce Youth
Build Program and asked her if I could attend the orientation
on the following Monday. I was in. She allowed me to come to
the orientation even though I had not tested or interviewed.
She took a chance on me, and I am glad.
Now that I am in the program, I feel that I am back on
track. Some people feel that they are too old to go back to
school to get an education. Youth Build made it possible for me
to get a way to get my GED. I also get a chance to go to school
and get money at the same time. I do not have to worry about
getting to work after being in school all day. I get both in
the same place. The environment stays the same. I am allowed
the chance to have a regular stable environment.
In my classes, there are smaller amounts of people. I am
able to get attention that I never got before. The teachers are
respectful and they care about me. I have two teachers who
care, instead of one who's all crazy and stressed out.
The counselors are there for me. I am able to get guidance
whenever I need it. I can discuss trouble when it comes.
Before, I would deal with it in any way I could without any
outside help from a responsible adult. I am even able to talk
about man stuff. I am able to hear from an adult and not feel
like something is wrong with me. This program gave me a way to
get back to what is supposed to be normal. I never knew normal.
It feels almost strange.
When I am all done with this program, I will have training
in a trade that I can use to get a job. I have other skills but
they are illegal skills. I can only use them for other types of
stuff. I was told that the construction piece could be seen as
a means to an end. I have a career counselor to help me with
any field I choose to enter. I have not made up my mind yet. I
got some help with all that too. My counselor told me to
redirect my other skills in a legal profession. Instead of
breaking an entering, I could be a locksmith.
Programs for young people like Youth Build need to be
everywhere. Not everybody is able to get the right people to
help them get back straight. Not everybody who falls off the
track is in a place where they get word of the chance to do
better, fix the wrong stuff, and make something of themselves.
Without the program, I would be selling clothes at a stand
in a mall with no GED or any type of good money. I would be
stressed out and feeling stupid still. It would take me a long
time to get my GED on my own. It would be a minute before I
would be able to figure out that nothing was wrong with me. It
would also take awhile to figure out the right things to do.
Right now, I have supervision even though I am not on
probation. People actually want to know where I am when I do
not show up for class. I am responsible for learning instead of
ducking the teachers and smoking weed. I even have some pocket
change, enough to satisfy immediate needs for a little while. I
am doing well and nothing is wrong with me. I am not a crazy
kid running the streets.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Whitfield follows:]
Prepared Statement of DeCario Whitfield
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is DeCario Whitfield.
I am 19 years old and I am a student enrolled in the Sasha Bruce
YouthBuild program. I came to the YouthBuild program after coming home
from jail. I was locked up at the age of 16 for armed robbery. There
were a lot of circumstances that led to that terrible time.
I was in high school. I was not getting the attention and
assistance that I needed from my teachers. I did not understand any of
the lessons and I was constantly behind in my assignments just because
I didn't understand. I was scared to go to class because I knew I
didn't know the stuff. The classes were out of order. The students were
running the halls, disrespectful to the teachers and each other. I was
roaming the halls and smoking weed to escape the misery of feeling
stupid and left behind. I couldn't wait for the 3:15 bell to ring.
Even though I lived with my grandmother, I did not have guidance at
home. Although I was not starving and had a roof over my head, I was
not getting attention from my family. My father was doing a ten-year
sentence in jail and my mother was running the streets too often to pay
me some mind. Her habit kept her busy getting her fix. I had nowhere to
turn for structure. I led myself wherever I wanted to go. I was in
charge of my life, even though I was not wise enough to make decisions
for myself. I lived in the ghetto. I saw people getting shot, stabbed;
using drugs, and getting robbed everyday. It was easy to follow the
crew and do the same thing.
After I was arrested, I felt ashamed of the fact that I hurt
others. I was sentenced to three years in jail. I was sentenced to a
Title-16 sentence. It's when a 16 year old is charged and sentenced as
an adult. I went to DC Detention Center, Shelby Training Center in
Memphis TN, and United States Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. I was not
going to get an education, a job, or any kind of direction and
development in those places.
Then one day after serving 2\1/2\ years of my sentence, I came
home. I was released to my family; the same family that did not give
the guidance that I needed in the first place. I was still on my own,
again. I knew I needed to make a change. I found out about the Sasha
Bruce YouthBuild while I was in jail. I wanted to get my GED because I
didn't graduate from high school. I wanted to be able to get a job so I
didn't ever have to hustle. I knew I needed some kind of skills and
training.
I came home on a Friday. Ms. Tara from Free Minds Reading Club
called Ms. Kym from Sasha Bruce YouthBuild and asked her if I could
attend the orientation on the following Monday. I was in. She allowed
me to come to the orientation even though I had not tested or
interviewed. She took a chance on me. I'm glad.
Now that I'm in the program, I feel that I'm back on track. Some
people feel that they are too old to go back to school to get an
education. YouthBuild made it possible for me to get a way to get my
GED. I also get a chance to go to school and get some money at the same
time. I don't have to worry about getting to work after I have been to
school all day. I get both in the same place. The environment stays the
same. I am allowed the chance to have a regular stable environment.
In my classes, there is a smaller amount of people. I am able to
get the attention that I never got before now. The teachers are
respectful and they care about me. I have two teachers who care,
instead of one all crazy and stressed out.
The counselors are there for me. I am able to get guidance when I
need it. I can discuss trouble when it comes. Before, I would deal with
it in any way I could without any outside help from a responsible
adult. I'm even able to talk about man stuff. I'm able to hear from an
adult and not feel like something is wrong with me. This program gave
me a way to get back to what's supposed to be normal. I never knew
normal. It feels almost strange.
When I'm all done with this program, I will have training in a
trade to use to get a job. I have other skills, but they're all illegal
skills. I can only use them for other type stuff. I was told that the
construction piece could be seen as a means to an end. I have a career
counselor to help me with any field I choose to enter. I have not made
up my mind yet. I got some help with all that too. My counselor told me
to redirect my other skills to use in legitimate professions. Instead
of breaking and entering, I could be a locksmith.
Programs for young people, like YouthBuild, need to be everywhere.
Not everybody is able to get to the right people to help them get back
straight. Not everybody that fell off the track is in a place where
they get word of the chance to do better, fix the wrong stuff, and make
something of themselves.
Without the program I would be selling clothes at a stand in the
mall with no GED or any type of good money. I would be stressed out and
feeling stupid, still. It would take me a long time to get my GED on my
own. It would be a minute before I would be able to figure out that
nothing is wrong with me. It would also take awhile to figure out the
right things to do. Right now, I have supervision, even though I'm not
on probation. People actually want to know where I've been when I don't
show up for class. I am responsible for learning, instead of ducking
the teachers and smoking weed. I even have some pocket change, enough
to satisfy immediate needs for a little while. I'm doing good, and
nothing is wrong with me. I'm not a crazy kid running the streets.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much for that testimony.
Dr. Mincy is a professor of social policy and social work
at Columbia University's School of Social Work.
Dr. Mincy?
STATEMENT OF RONALD B. MINCY, MAURICE V. RUSSELL PROFESSOR OF
SOCIAL POLICY AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Dr. MINCY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Since many young
people between 16 and 24 years old are out of school and out of
work, they are not acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to
replace today's skilled, educated and experienced adult
workers. These young people are called ``disconnected youth.''
To remain competitive in a global economy, it is imperative
that Congress act in order to reconnect these young people to
school and work. Doing so would also provide an important
progress on an important American ideal, namely, inter-
generational social mobility. Finally, reconnecting these young
people to school and work would save billions of dollars in
future welfare, child welfare, unemployment and criminal
justice expenditures. For these reasons, I applaud this
Committee for holding these hearings, and I am grateful for the
opportunity to testify.
I would like to set a big picture here. Between 1980 and
2000, the United States enjoyed two of the longest periods of
economic growth this nation has ever seen. That growth was
fueled by a steady increase in the size, skills, experience and
education of the prime-age labor force. However, over the next
10 years, the prime-age labor force is expected to grow at less
than half the pace it did during these prosperous years.
Moreover, white workers, who generally have more education and
occupational status than black, Latino and foreign-born
workers, represented the majority of new workers during this
prosperous time, but they will represent just 15 percent of net
new workers over the next two decades.
Increases in the fraction of workers with college degrees
help to fuel the economic growth of the 1980s to 2000s.
However, we are expected to have very slow growth in the number
of college-educated workers in the next 10 years.
For these reasons, maintaining our competitiveness demands
that we get as much as we can out of every potential worker.
However, youth between 16 and 24 years old, who are not in
school and not in work, are not obtaining the skills they need
to fill the void.
Disconnected youth represent about 5 to 29 percent of all
young people between 16 and 24 years old. Estimates vary about
how large this population is according to the age at which we
are trying to begin these estimates or whether or not the
estimates are narrow or broad. Some estimates include younger
adolescence down to age 14. Some include, in addition to being
out of school and out of work, women who are not married to
students or workers or unmarried mothers. Some estimates rely
not just on being out of school and out of work but whether or
not someone is a high school dropout in the foster care system
or in the juvenile justice system or whether or not someone
suffers from long-term unemployment or incarceration.
Due to these variations, most studies estimate the
population as being somewhere between 2 million and 10 million
youth. Therefore, this population is by no means a drop in the
bucket and it really represents an important potential labor
force to replace retiring workers that if we do not act, we
will lose.
Our tolerance for social and economic mobility is based on
the idea that equal opportunity will mean that disadvantaged
adults will not have disadvantaged children. However, the
characteristics of most disconnected youth belie that. Blacks
and Hispanics, particularly those of Puerto Rican descent, are
over-represented among disadvantaged youth. The children of
high school dropouts are also over-represented as are the
children of public assistance recipients.
Not only are the children of the disadvantaged more likely
to become disconnected in the first place, but they are also
likely to experience recurring spells of disconnection and
longer spells. For example, black men who are in this age
group, one third of them have disconnection spells of up to two
years and 12 percent of them have disconnection spells of up to
three years. Someone who has three years of being out of school
and out of work is unlikely to be hired by the private sector
in the United States. This suggests that the idea of inter-
generational mobility is being undermined by this notion of
disconnected youth and it is for this reason that it is
important for this Committee to act.
I want to then honor my time and the time of the other
presenters by pointing out that we have heard of a number of
effective programs for disadvantaged youth. Youth Build has
been touted a number of times. There is also a CUNY Prep
Program, which I discuss in my written testimony, that moves
young people from being out of school and out of work to
actually enrolling in college.
So, I want to again applaud this Committee for holding
these hearings and I look forward to working with this
Committee in the future to see that we can address these to a
number of different Committees, a number of Federal programs
and thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Mincy follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ronald B. Mincy, Ph.D., Maurice V. Russell
Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice, Columbia
University School of Social Work
Because many young people between 16 and 24 years old are out-of-
school and out-of work, they are not acquiring the knowledge and skills
needed to replace today's skilled, educated, and experienced adult
workers. These young people are called disconnected youth. To remain
competitive in a global economy, it is imperative that Congress act in
order to re-connect these young people to school and work. Doing so
would also promote an important American ideal, namely
intergenerational social mobility. Finally, reconnecting these young
people to school and work would save billions of dollars in future
welfare, unemployment, and criminal justice expenditures. For these
reasons, I applaud this committee for holding these hearings, and I am
grateful for the opportunity to testify.
As compared with the previous two decades, the U.S. labor force is
expected to grow much more slowly and we can anticipate substantial
shortages of skilled, educated, and experienced workers. The labor
force (persons between 25 and 54 years old) grew by almost 50 percent
between 1980 and 2000, but over the following 20 years, it is projected
to grow by less than 16 percent. Only 15 percent of net new U.S.
workers will be native-born whites, who represented over 54 percent of
net new workers between 1980 and 2000. Black, Hispanic, and foreign-
born workers will replace native born white workers between the ages of
25 and 54 years old, because the number of these prime age white
workers will decline by 10 percent 2000 and 2020 (Ellwood, 2001). Since
minority and foreign-born workers generally have lower levels of
educational attainment and occupational status than white workers, this
demographic transition implies declines in the skills and education of
the American workforce. There is also direct evidence of such a
decline. The fraction of workers with college degrees will increase by
about 5 percentage points between 2000 and 2020; during the two decades
before 2000 it increased by 11 percentage points (Ellwood, 2001).
Youth who are out of school and out of work are not acquiring the
knowledge and skills needed to replace the skilled, educated, and
experienced adult workers who will retiring in the coming decade. In
the 1990s, observers began efforts to estimate the size and
characteristics of these disconnected youth (Besharov 1999 and Donahoe
and Tienda 2000). Though we know much more about them, we still lack a
coherent national strategy to provide these young people with the
supports they need to return to school and work, so that we remain
competitive in a global economy.
Definitions of disconnected youth vary by age and other criteria.
The most strict definition is a person between the 16 and 24 years old,
who is neither working (in the private sector or the military), nor in
school. When studying disconnection, some studies consider youth as
young as 14 years old because it is clear that the process of
disconnection begins before age 16. To take account of gender
differences in the transition from youth to adulthood, early studies
added teenaged mothers or women who were not married to a student or
worker to the definition of disconnected youth (Brown and Emig, 1999).
More recent studies also use factors that are highly associated with
disconnection by the most strict definition (out-of-school and out of
work) as criteria defining disconnection youth. For example, according
to Wald and Martinez, (2006) any 14 to 17 year old who drops out of
high school, or is involved with the juvenile justice system, or is an
unmarried mother, or is in foster care is at risk of disconnection.
Moreover, any 18-to-24 year old who experiences long-term unemployment
or incarceration is disconnected. Because of these variations in
criteria, estimates of the size of the disconnected-youth population
vary widely. By the strictest definition, disconnected youth represent
about 5 percent of all youth between 16 and 24 years old. By broader
definitions, they represent as much as 29 percent of all youth in a
given age range. Depending upon criteria, disconnected youth were
reconnected to school and work, they could replace a small or more
substantial fraction of the skilled, educated, and experienced workers
who will retire over the next decade.
Besides replacing skilled, experienced, and educated workers,
disconnected youth are evidence that a fundamental American ideal is
failing. That ideal is intergenerational social-economic mobility. Our
tolerance for social and economic inequality is based on the belief
that equal opportunity will make it possible for the children of the
disadvantaged to advance beyond their parents' station in life.
However, a common finding of studies of disconnection is that blacks
and native-born Hispanics, especially those of Puerto Rican descent,
are more likely to become disconnected than other adolescents (Brown
and Emig 1999, Donahoe and Tienda 2000, and MaCurdy, Keating, et al.
2006). For example, black males are twice as likely to be disconnected
as white males, because of their high dropout, unemployment and
incarceration rates. In addition to high dropout and unemployment
rates, black females are more likely to be disconnected than white
females because of their high rates of unmarried births.
Studies also show that race and ethnicity are not the only
evidence, related to disconnection, that the American class structure
is hardening. Instead, the probability of disconnection is inversely
related to parental education and parental receipt of public
assistance. So, for example, by age 22 the probability of disconnection
for the adolescent children of high school dropouts is more than twice
as high as the corresponding probability for the adolescent children of
college graduates. What's more the probability of disconnection was 34
percent for the white adolescent children of high school dropouts, but
47 percent for the white adolescent children of high school dropouts,
who also received public benefits (MaCurdy, Keating, et al. 2006).
Longitudinal studies, which examine outcomes over time, show that
race and parental education are also strong predictors of recurring and
longer spells of disconnection. For example, once an initial spell of
disconnection is interrupted by a return to work or school, 13 percent
of the adolescent children of high school dropouts experience a second
spell of disconnection. By contrast, a second spell of disconnection
occurs for only 7 percent of the adolescent children of high school
graduates and only 4 the adolescent children of college graduates. Only
24 percent of white males had a first spell of disconnection lasting at
least two years; while 33 percent of black males did so. Indeed, 12.3
percent of black males had first disconnections spells that lasted
three years; only 8.3 percent of black females, 6.5 percent of white
males and 4.9 percent of white females had a first disconnection spell
of such long duration.
That the incidence, recurrence, and duration of disconnection
spells is higher for blacks than whites, does not mean that white youth
are immune to disconnection. The majority (58 percent) of disconnected
youth are white.
Longitudinal studies of disconnection also providing information
that may help policy makers target resources to disconnected youth. As
stated above, the adolescent children of public assistance recipients
are more likely to become disconnected as are youth in the foster care
system and juvenile justice systems. Moreover, the probability of the
first spell of disconnection rises steadily with age, but peaks at 18
years old, when most youth should be graduating from high school.
Finally, the probability of a second spell of disconnection is higher
for youth who began their first spell of disconnection after dropping
out of school or being convicted of a crime. These findings suggest
strategic points during the life cycle when interventions should be
targeting disconnected youth or youth at risk of becoming disconnected.
An obvious intervention point is just before youth leave school.
Another is while youth (or their parents) are receiving public
benefits. Other points of intervention include the period just before
youth age out of foster care or after youth have been convicted of a
crime, perhaps in programs that divert non-violent offenders from
incarceration. Welfare programs and programs serving teen mothers are
obvious points of contact for serving disconnected young women. But
because disconnected young men are rarely served by publicly-funded
programs, unless they are reached in school, foster care, or in the
juvenile justice system, it may be difficult to reach them at all.
Reconnecting Disconnected Youth
Promising or effective interventions for disconnected youth are
simple to conceptualize, but often difficult to design and implement.
They tend to connect youth, to school or work, but they must also
create comprehensive systems of support to address barriers to school
attendance and employment. The basic model for connecting disconnected
youth to school is the alternative high school. Studies show that the
most successful such high schools emphasize easy access. They tend to
be free of charge and offer schedules that allow young people to handle
their personal responsibilities and complete their coursework. The most
promising approaches go beyond GED attainment, because studies show
that the return to obtaining a GED is substantially lower than the
returns to a high school diploma (Campbell and College, 2003).
Moreover, these programs have small class sizes, a family atmosphere, a
combination informality and structure and individualized strategies are
all common in successful transitional schools. Student autonomy and
accountability are also stressed in these programs (Dugger and Dugger
1998 and Reimer and Cash 2003). Other features of effective alternative
schools include attention to students' psychological needs and efforts
to build on student's social as well as their academic skills (Mitchell
and Waiwaiole 2003).
CUNY Prep, collaboration between the Department of Youth and
Community Development (DYCD), New York City Department of Education
(DOE) and City University of New York (CUNY), is a good example of a
alternative high school. The purpose of CUNY Prep is to prepare out-of-
school students, between the ages of 16-18 years old, to reenter high
school or to acquire their GED so they may attend college. With this
goal in mind, CUNY Prep works to improve the confidence of the youth as
students in a small school setting, where they are held to high
expectations. Teachers and administrators work diligently with students
to overcome current barriers, such as acquiring daycare for young
mothers and housing or other barriers to reentry for ex-offenders.
Besides high expectations and supports, CUNY Prep students are also
held accountable for their actions. Failure to adhere to rules for
student conduct often results in dismissal, although students are
allowed to return the following semester with no retributions.
Connecting older youth or young adults to work is a more formidable
task for several reasons. Young people between the ages of 18 and 24,
usually face more obstacles to work than younger cohorts, attempting to
return to school. Many 18-to-24 year-old disconnected youth are high
school dropouts. Others graduated from high school despite having
limited math and reading skills. Finally, few employers are willing to
hire young people with no work experience. Despite these difficulties,
there are programs that are successful in introducing or re-introducing
these young adults to work.
Many of the characteristic of successful alternative education
programs hold true for workforce development programs. However,
diversity within the disconnected-young adult population requires
multiple pathways to success (National League of Cities, 2000). Such
designs often result when efforts are undertaken to include
disconnected young adults in program design and implementation
decisions.
YouthBuild USA is a nationally recognized program that works with
disconnected young people, by creating meaningful employment
opportunities in the construction industry. The Department of Housing
and Urban Development has partnered with local nonprofit, faith-based
and public agencies to replicate Youthbuild in several communities
around the country. Constructions jobs not only help the young adults,
but also enable these young adults to contribute to their communities
by building low-income housing. While learning job skills that will
lead to sustainable employment, young adults are also encouraged to
complete their high school diploma or obtain their GED at YouthBuild's
own alternative school. Consistent with the comprehensive approach
needed to work with disconnected youth, Youthbuild also provides social
support and follow up services to participants.
More recently, Youthbuild has added several new features to its
programming, which should increase success. Through a partnership with
AmeriCorps young adults receive monetary compensation while learning
new skills, which should increases retention. Additionally, AmeriCorps
offers a stipend or a larger educational reward upon completion of the
program, which should increase the number of young adults who
successfully complete the program. Fifty-eight percent of the youth
that enter the program complete it, of those 33 percent obtain their
GED or high school diploma and 78 percent go onto to gainful employment
or further education.
Financial literacy and leadership development are other new
components of Youthbuild's programming. Upon graduation from the
program, YouthBuild introduces its graduates to asset development
through Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and YouthBuild Asset
Trust. After graduation from Youthbuild, participants have the
opportunity to engage youth leadership activities. There are a variety
of alumni youth leadership organizations for graduates of YouthBuild.
A final example of a promising program for disconnected youth is
especially focused on homeless youth and youth in foster care system.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Youth Opportunity Initiative (MAYOI) is a is a
two year transitional program, sponsored by The Annie E. Casey
Foundation and Casey Family Programs, targeting foster care youth or
youth who have been previously homeless. MAYOI collaborates with local
providers ensure these youth receive priority for housing and other
social services, including education, health care, employment-training.
The goal for participants is to become economically self-sufficient in
two years and have their own home within three years.
These are just a few of the promising initiatives that have been
developed by governments and non-profit agencies to respond to the
needs of disconnected youth. A much more concerted effort is needed in
the coming years to build effective systems to support these youth. One
of the obstacles to such a system is the multiple jurisdictions
involved. Disconnected youth (or those at risk) come from families
receiving welfare, the foster care system, and the criminal justice
system. We want to ensure that these youth return to school and to
work. Though support from the federal government is desperately needed,
no single federal departments and Congressional committees can do the
job on its own. Nevertheless, I urge Members of Congress to begin with
these hearings to work through the obstacles. Our position in the world
economy and our commitment to a fundamental American ideal depend on
our ability to act decisively, over the 10 years.
References
Besharov, D. (Ed.) (1999). America's Disconnected Youth. Washington,
D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.
Brown, B.V., & Emig, C. (1999). Prevalence, Patterns, and Outcomes. In
D. Besharov (Ed.), America's Disconnected Youth. Washington, D.C.:
American Enterprise Institute.
Campbell, L. and College, N. (2003). As strong as the strongest link:
Urban high school dropout. The High School Journal, 87, 2, 16-24.
Dugger, J.M. and Dugger, C.W. (1998). An evaluation of a successful
alternative high school. The High School Journal. 81(4), 218-228.
Donahoe, Debra and Marta Tienda. 2000. ``The Transition from School to
Work: Is There a Crisis? What Can Be Done?'' In Danziger, Sheldon, and
Jane Waldfogel (Eds.) Securing the Future: Investing in Children from
Birth to College. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, NY.
Ellwood, D.T. (2001). The Sputtering Labor Force of the 21st Century:
Can Social Policy Help?: National Bureau of Economic Research.
MaCurdy, T., Keating, B., and Nagavarapu, S.S. (2006). Profiling the
plight of disconnected youth in America. William and Flora Hewitt
Foundation.
Metropolitan Atlanta Youth Opportunities Initiative. (2007). Making My
Way Home program overview. Retrieved on June 17, 2007 from the World
Wide Web: http://www.atlcf.org/www/documents/mywayinfo06b.pdf.
Metropolitan Atlanta Youth Opportunities Initiative. Metropolitan
Atlanta Youth Opportunities Initiative fact sheet. Retrieved on June
17, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.jimcaseyyouth.org/docs/
mayoifactsheet.pdf.
Mitchell, S. and Waiaiola, G. (2003). Interim Evaluation of In-District
Alternative Education High School Programs. Portland, OR: Author.
National League of Cities. (2006). Reengaging disconnected youth.
Washington, DC: Author.
Reimer, M. and Cash, T. (2003). Alternative schools: Best practices for
development and evaluation. Clemson, South Carolina: National Dropout
Prevention Center.
The Jim Casey Youth Opportunity Initative. (2006). Cross-Site Report:
Progress on Performance Measures. Retrieved on June 17, 2007 from the
World Wide Web: http://www.atlcf.org/www/documents/perfreport06.pdf.
Wald, M. and Martinez, T. (2003). Connected by 25: Improving the life
chances of the countries most vulnerable 14-24 year olds. William and
Flora Hewitt Foundation Working Paper.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Ms. Burt is a research associate for the Center for Labor,
Human Services and Population at The Urban Institute.
STATEMENT OF MARTHA R. BURT, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, CENTER ON
LABOR, HUMAN SERVICES AND POPULATION, THE URBAN INSTITUTE
Dr. BURT. Thank you, Chairman McDermott, Congressman Weller
and other Members of the----
Chairman MCDERMOTT. I guess I should have addressed you as
``Doctor,'' I am sorry.
Dr. BURT. Thank you. He is a doctor and I am a doctor.
Thanks for inviting me to share my views related to homeless
youth, and especially their involvement in public systems. I
have been involved in policy-oriented research related to
homeless populations since 1983 with the First Emergency Food
and Shelter Act, and I have also, in addition to working on
homeless issues, worked a lot on high-risk youth from a number
of different directions, including teenage pregnancy, mental
illness and community programs to assist multi-problem youth.
So, I take a multi-system perspective, and I take a fairly
long--who is getting into the potential place to become
homeless among many youth who are at high risk and experience a
lot of difficulties.
About a quarter of youth could be put in that category of
those who have an elevated risk of homelessness. They are in
fact showing up on the streets and the more vulnerabilities
they have in the direction of many of the issues that people
have said the higher likelihood that they are--that they will
experience homelessness.
I have been asked to talk about how big the problem is,
that is how many homeless youth are there, who they are and
what might be promising types of intervention. I am not going
to talk about who they are because I think you have heard that
from everybody else. I have provided a number of statistics
about the proportions that we know from research are in--have
particular issues, but I will skip that.
I do want to talk about the issue of understanding how big
the problem is and why it is so difficult for anybody to tell
you the answer to that. The Committee is, at this point,
interested in youth 16 to 24. That means you are interested in
minors and adults. The same national surveys do not cover both
minors and adults, and so we are always in a position of trying
to piece together information from surveys that look at youth,
like the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and surveys that look at
adults. In addition, the same systems do not serve both youth
and adults. So, for instance, the homeless service system, for
which we do have some national data and national estimates that
I have included in my testimony, does not take anybody under
18. The Runaway and Homeless Youth system has its own data
system and trying to put those together is rather difficult.
The foster care system has yet another data system. Trying to
figure out where the overlaps are makes it very difficult for
us to give you estimates.
It also very much depends on what you mean by ``homeless.''
When you look at estimates of 1.5 million, 1.6, 1.7 million, in
the course of a year, is everything from youth who have left
without parental permission for one night, so the definition in
these telephone surveys is one night on the street without
consent and not on vacation, of course, all the way to up kids
who have basically been kicked out at the age of 12 because
somebody found out or figured out that they were a sexual
minority and they have no place to go except on the street from
thereon. So, if you are looking at the very hardcore group of
kids who have very long histories of homelessness, that is a
smaller proportion of kids who have a lot more complex needs
and a level of intervention that will be necessary to help them
back is a lot higher.
Youth who use youth homeless shelters are most often
homeless for the first time and have not been homeless very
long. Mostly what we know about them we know because they are
connected to the programs run by the Family and Youth Services
Bureau and we have a data system on them. Street use is exactly
the opposite. They are unattached to shelters, they are on
their own without adult supervision for periods that can last
for several years. In the National Survey of Homeless
Assistance Providers and Clients, which I analyzed and
published a lot about, we looked at the 18 and 19 year olds
because this went only to adult shelters so we have analyzed
the 18 and 19 year olds and the 20 to 24 year olds to look at
the differences between those age groups and the homeless
people over 25, and what you find is that up to 61 percent of
the 18 and 19 year olds who are in adult shelters have been in
foster care and have aged out of foster care, many have been in
correctional institutions and that is where you get your really
serious cases who have very long histories of homelessness,
they are already chronically homeless.
In the 20 to 24 year old group, you have a lot of young
mothers, who were teenage moms, have all the issues related to
being a mother at a very young age, often not voluntarily, and
are now turning up as the homeless families, and they are being
talked about as if they were not teenage moms, they are just a
normal family that was just one paycheck away from homelessness
but that is not actually who they are.
I want to actually emphasize very much that the
intervention point, there is a general rule of thumb, when you
are looking at populations sort of as broad brush as homeless
youth and that is to go for the hardest core you can find. If
you are going to put significant money into people, people who
are in trouble, the ones you really want to touch and touch
deeply, intensively, and across the board, are those who have
absolutely no chance of getting out of this on their own. Most
of the children who go to runaway and homeless youth centers
end up in fact reconnected to their families, thanks to the
help they get at those places, with not no trouble but not huge
amounts of trouble and huge investment in them.
The really hardcore kids, the kids who age out of foster
care, the kids who run away from foster care, which is at least
as many, the kids who get exited out of foster care before they
are 18 because they are now in other institutions, like jails
and correctional facilities, these populations are at least as
big those that age out. The 200,000 a year who leave
correctional institutions between the ages of 16 and 24 also
are at very, very high risk for long-term less than productive
lives. The most expensive interventions are also the
interventions that will rescue the people who are least likely
to rescue themselves.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Burt follows:]
Prepared Statement of Martha R. Burt, Ph.D., Research Associate,
Center on Labor, Human Services and Population, The Urban Institute
Chairman McDermott and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for inviting me to share my views relating to homeless
youth, and especially to their involvement in public systems under the
supervision of this committee. I have been involved in policy-oriented
research on homeless populations and homeless service systems since
1983, when the first Emergency Food and Shelter Program legislation was
passed, and have also spent considerable time trying to understand
strategies that are able to reach multiproblem youth and help them move
toward a productive and responsible adulthood. So it is a pleasure for
me to be asked to give testimony on a matter that has not received
either the research or policy attention it deserves.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ This testimony draws on my own and other researchers' published
and unpublished work. The views expressed are mine alone and do not
necessarily reflect the views of any organization with which I am
affiliated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been asked to address three issues: (1) How big is the
problem--how many homeless youth are there? (2) Who are homeless
youth--what are their characteristics, and what factors predispose
youth to become homeless? and (3) What might be the most promising
points and types of intervention? \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ For a recent comprehensive overview of youth homelessness, see
Paul Toro, Amy Dworsky, and Patrick Fowler, ``Homeless Youth in the
United States: Recent Research Findings and Intervention Approaches.''
Paper presented at the Second National Homelessness Research Symposium,
March 1-2, Washington, D.C., sponsored by Department of Health and
Human Services (DHHS) and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (DHUD).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How Big Is the Problem?
There are no reliable statistics on the number of homeless youth,
in part because this is a notoriously difficult population to find and
count, and in part because everyone defines the population differently.
This Subcommittee has stated that its interest is in the population of
youth and young adults age 16 to 24. This age range includes both
minors and adults, which usually means that data must be drawn from
different ongoing national surveys just as different systems of public
and private support and intervention serve minors and adults. There are
also issues of what one means by ``homeless''--does one night away from
home without permission count, or two nights, or do we want to focus on
the youth who truly have no place to go back to and spend years on the
streets? Estimates have to be cobbled together from different sources,
or special surveys have to be conducted, each of which has its
limitations. I am happy to say more about definitional and
methodological issues if asked, but assuming the Subcommittee is
interested in our best guesses, they are the following:
For youth age 12-17, two estimates from quite
different sources fall in the range of 1.6 to 1.7 million a
year (between 7 and 8 percent of all youth in those age
ranges). This estimate is at the high end because it is very
inclusive, counting short unauthorized absences from home or
``throwaway'' experiences of getting kicked out for a period of
time as well as long-term separation from family or having
nowhere to return (Ringwalt et al. 1998; Hammer, Finkelhor, and
Sedlak 2002). A higher proportion of episodes occur among older
than among younger youth. Further, most of these episodes are
very short, with the result that about 300,000 to 400,000 youth
might be expected to be homeless on any given day.
Youth using homeless youth shelters are usually
homeless for the first time and have not been homeless long.
Information about youth in these shelters, which are usually
funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), can be obtained
through RHYMIS, that system's management information database.
Street youth are the opposite--unattached to shelters and on
their own without adult supervision for periods that can exceed
several years. Information about this part of the homeless
youth population is only available through special studies.
Homelessness among young adults, age 18 to 24, may be
studied within the homeless assistance system that serves
adults. Still the best source of that information, although now
dated, is the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers
and Clients (NSHAPC), which was conducted in 1996. Urban
Institute researchers developed estimates of the homeless
population from NSHAPC, from which we can estimate the numbers
of 18- to 19-year-olds and 20- to 24-year-olds among the adult
homeless population (Burt, Aron, and Lee 2001).
18- to 19-year-olds are 5 percent, or 22,000 to
44,000, of the homeless population on a single day, or about
80,000 to 170,000 over the course of a year.
20- to 24-year-olds are 7 percent, or 31,000 to
59,000, of the homeless population on a single day, or about
124,000 to 236,000 over the course of a year.
Who Are Homeless Youth?
Gender--In shelter samples, whether in youth or adult
shelters, the proportions of males and females tend to be about
equal. The older and the more ``street'' the sample, the more
males.
Race/ethnicity--As with samples of homeless adults,
race/ethnicity distributions depend heavily on the race/
ethnicity distribution of the entire community.
Sexual minorities--Research findings on the
proportion of homeless youth who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual
vary, from a low of about 6 percent from youth-services-center
samples to as high as 11 to 35 percent in street samples.
Sexual minority status is a powerful risk factor for youth
homelessness, as disclosure to a parent or a parent's discovery
of that status may lead to being thrown out or running away.
Pregnancy--Homeless youth are three times as likely
as national samples of youth to be pregnant, to have
impregnated someone, or to already be a parent. Pregnancy may
be the result of having no way to obtain money other than
through prostitution (survival sex) when already homeless or
ejection from home because of the pregnancy. This trend
continues for homeless young adults age 18 to 24 (see appendix,
table 1).
Length of time homeless--As noted, youth using
runaway and homeless youth shelters tend to have been homeless
only once and for a short period of time. NSHAPC data on young
adults shows that more than half had been homeless for 2 to 9
years. Two-thirds of those age 18 to 19 had first become
homeless before they were 18; the same was true for a third of
those age 20 to 24 (see appendix, table 1).
Risk Factors for Homelessness Among Youth
In addition to pregnancy and sexual minority status, a number of
factors may contribute to a youth becoming homeless and to the separate
issue of a youth remaining homeless.
School difficulties--About half of homeless youth have
not finished high school, with the proportion going up the younger the
youth. Between one-fourth and two-fifths of homeless youth have had to
repeat at least one grade in school. Among young adult homeless people,
the majority have been suspended and/or expelled from school (see
appendix, table 2).
Substance abuse--Thirty to 40 percent of homeless youth
report alcohol problems in their lifetime, and 40 to 50 percent report
drug problems. These percentages are smaller than for older homeless
people, but homeless youth tend to have started younger, often before
age 15. This early use and abuse is predictive of serious adult
addiction problems and long-term homelessness (of 18- to 19-year-olds
in NSHAPC, 23 percent began drinking to get drunk before age 15, and 20
percent began using drugs regularly at that early age) (see appendix,
table 2).
Mental health problems--Forty-five percent of homeless
youth reported mental health problems in the past year, 50 to 56
percent did so over their lifetime. These rates are not different than
for older homeless adults, but they are predictive of becoming homeless
and remaining homeless (see appendix, table 2).
Family conflict and child maltreatment--Very high
proportions of homeless youth report family conflict as a reason for
being homeless. Almost twice as many young adult homeless people report
abuse and neglect experiences as do older homeless people (see
appendix, table 3).
Out-of-home placement and foster care--Abuse and neglect
experiences increase the likelihood of child welfare involvement and
out-of-home placement, and life on the street increases the likelihood
of criminal involvement.
61 percent of 18- to 19-year-old NSHAPC young
adults had been in out-of-home placements--a rate more than two
and a half times that reported by homeless adults 25 and older.
The 20- to 24-year-old NSHAPC population was in the middle.
Further, the younger group was more likely to have been removed
from their home before age 13 and to have spent more time in
out-of-home placement. Half had been forced to leave home when
they were a minor (see appendix, table 3). About a quarter of
NSHAPC young adults had been in juvenile detention, compared
with 15 percent of older homeless people.
The association between child welfare involvement
and shelter use as an adult works both ways. Studies in New
York City indicate that 29 percent of emergency shelter users
had been involved with child welfare services, of whom three-
quarters had been placed outside the home (Park, Metraux, and
Culhane 2005). Thus, out-of-home placement is a decided risk
for homelessness (in the general population, only about 3
percent of adults have been so placed). Looked at from the
child welfare perspective, 19 percent of former child welfare
service users entered public shelters within 10 years of
leaving child welfare. Those placed outside the home were twice
as likely as those that just received preventive services to
enter a shelter (22 versus 11 percent), while absconders from
foster care had the highest rate of subsequent homelessness
(Park et al. 2004a).
Finally, having been homeless as a child, with
one's parent(s), is associated with subsequent child welfare
involvement. Eighteen percent of such children became involved
with child welfare within 5 years of their first shelter
admission, with recurrent use of shelters (i.e., repeated
homeless episodes) being a strong predictor of child welfare
involvement (Park et al. 2004b).
Juvenile justice involvement--Every year about 200,000
youth age 10 to 24 leave detention and correctional facilities. Most do
not have a high school diploma, nor have they ever held a job. They
frequently have physical health, mental health, and/or substance abuse
problems. And they most commonly go back to neighborhoods that will
expose them to the same risk factors for getting into trouble that put
them into the justice system in the first place. Several studies,
summarized by Toro et al. (2007), indicate that these youth have high
probabilities of ending up homeless.
All the statistics we can assemble suggest that many kinds of
trouble may lead to youth homelessness. The very large majority of
youth who experience a runaway, throwaway, or homeless episode manage
to leave homelessness and not return. But the longer a youth has been
homeless, the more likely he or she is to be in many kinds of trouble
and to have been for a long time (Toro, Dworsky, and Fowler 2007).
Further, the longer the period of youth homelessness is and the more
barriers a youth faces, the higher the risk that the youth will end up
as a chronically homeless adult. Indeed, many homeless street youth
today would meet HUD criteria for chronic homelessness if they were
adults.
Intervention Options
A general rule of thumb for selecting among intervention points and
intervention types is ``go for the hardest-core you can find.'' Thus,
with homeless youth, the largest waste of human potential, along with
the biggest costs to society, lies with multiproblem youth, who are
quite often involved with two or more public systems and who have the
highest risk of becoming and remaining homeless. This may seem
counterintuitive, and it is often not politically popular. But a good
deal of research indicates that while interventions with the ``hardest-
core'' parts of a population are the most expensive, they also yield
the most impact for the investment. This is because these are the
people who are pretty much guaranteed not to solve their own problems
if left to their own devices.
The runaway and homeless youth shelter network, supported and
overseen by the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the DHHS, already
focuses on the large component of the runaway youth population that
potentially has a home to go back to. Follow-up studies indicate that
the very large majority of these youth (up to 90+ percent) reunite with
their parents, progress to living on their own, or live with friends,
but do not continue in or return to homelessness. While expanding the
numbers and locations of these programs would always be desirable, such
an expansion would not make much difference for the street youth
population because very few of the latter population use these
programs.
The intervention points that are likely to yield maximum payoff are
the periods surrounding institutional release--the 24,000+ youth who
turn 18 while in foster care and the 200,000+ youth who leave juvenile
or corrections facilities every year are those among the general youth
population who have the highest risk of becoming homeless and of
staying homeless or reentering institutions if nothing is done to
intervene. \3\ The period surrounding the end of substance abuse
treatment or psychiatric hospitalization is another potentially
fruitful intervention point.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ A slightly higher proportion of youth who were in foster care
at age 16 ``exit'' foster care by running away (21 percent) as leave
care because they reach age 18 (18 percent). Another group comprising
18 percent of those in care at age 16 leave under ``other''
circumstances, including transfer to juvenile corrections and other
institutions (Orlebeke, 2007). These approximately 50,000 additional
youth once in the custody of foster care systems are at very high risk
of homelessness; they probably also overlap to an unknown degree with
the 200,000 leaving correctional facilities each year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some research on the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (FCIA)
indicates that this strategy has promise. The FCIA doubled allocations
to states to ease transition from foster care and allows states to use
30 percent of funds to pay for housing for youth older than 18 but not
yet 21. Research summarized by Toro et al. (2007, 14-17) indicates that
the youth who receive this type of support are less likely to become
homeless during the transition period, and are also more likely to be
in college, have access to health care, and not be involved in the
criminal justice system. Further follow-up interview waves will shed
light on whether these differences persist once youth reach age 21.
In Denver, Urban Peak runs two housing programs that address,
respectively, the needs of youth aging out of foster care and long-term
street youth. The first is a partnership between Urban Peak and the
state child welfare department to provide permanent supportive housing
for children in or about to leave state custody who are or have been
homeless. The second uses HUD funding and local service dollars to
create permanent supportive housing for street youth with disabilities,
to allow them to stabilize and get their lives together (Burt, Pearson,
and Montgomery 2005).
Throughout the country, adult corrections departments are realizing
that it is in their interest to partner with homeless assistance
networks as well as employment, mental health and substance abuse
agencies to ease the transition from incarceration to community. This
movement is driven by the bottom line for corrections departments--two-
thirds of releasees will be back within three years if they do not
receive transitional assistance. The return of such a large proportion
of releasees is extremely expensive for corrections departments, and
they are finally realizing that it is in their interest to do something
about it. The same could be happening with juvenile justice
institutions and the young adult facilities run by adult corrections
departments.
Conclusions
A surprisingly large proportion of youth age 16 to 24 will
experience at least one night of homelessness. A much smaller
proportion will spend a lot of time homeless, as youth and later as
adults. The factors that propel youth toward homelessness are often the
same ones that keep them there or that create the conditions for repeat
episodes. We do not have much research evidence capable of guiding us
toward the most effective interventions to prevent or end youth
homelessness. What we do have suggests that we should pick points of
maximum leverage, such as when youth are leaving institutional care,
and provide ``whatever it takes'' to ensure that they can avoid
homelessness and ultimately transition to lives of self-sufficiency.
References
Burt, Martha R., Laudan Aron, and Edgar Lee. 2001. Helping America's
Homeless: Emergency Shelter or Affordable Housing? Washington, DC:
Urban Institute Press.
Burt, Martha R., Carol Pearson, and Ann Elizabeth Montgomery. 2005.
Strategies for Preventing Homelessness. Washington, DC: Department of
Housing and Urban Development.
Hammer, H. David Finkelhor, and Andrea Sedlak. 2002. Runaway/Thrownaway
Children: National Estimates and Characteristics. National Incidence
Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children
(NISMART), October 2002. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, Department of Justice.
Orlebeke, Britany. 2007. ``Making the Child Welfare System Work for
Older Youth.'' Presentation at Thursday's Child, Urban Institute,
Washington, DC, June 14, 2007.
Park, Jung M., Stephen Metraux, and Dennis P. Culhane. 2005.
``Childhood Out-of-Home Placement and Dynamics of Public Shelter
Utilization among Young Homeless Adults.'' Children and Youth Services
Review 17(5): 533-46.
Park, Jung M., Stephen Metraux, Gabriel Brodbar, and Dennis P. Culhane.
2004a. ``Public Shelter Admission among Young Adults with Child Welfare
Histories by Type of Service and Type of Exit.'' Social Services Review
78: 284-303.
------. 2004b. ``Child Welfare Involvement among Children in Homeless
Families.'' Child Welfare 83(5): 423-36.
Ringwalt, Chris, James M. Greene, Marjorie Robertson, and M.
McPheeters. 1998. ``The Prevalence of Homelessness Among Adolescents in
the United States.'' American Journal of Public Health 88(9): 1325-29.
Toro, Paul, Amy Dworsky, and Peter Fowler. 2007. ``Homeless Youth in
the United States: Recent Research Findings and Intervention
Approaches.'' Paper presented at the Second National Homelessness
Research Symposium, March 1-2, Washington, D.C.
Appendix
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Dan Lips is an educational analyst for the Heritage
Institute--the Heritage Foundation, excuse me.
Dan?
STATEMENT OF DANIEL LIPS, EDUCATION ANALYST,
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. LIPS. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Weller, members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for having me here to testify today. My
name is Dan Lips and I am an education analyst at The Heritage
Foundation. The views that I express today are my own and
should not be construed as representing any official position
of The Heritage Foundation.
I am here today to testify about the need to improve
educational opportunities for children in foster care, and
specifically why Federal and State policy-makers should give
foster children and their guardians more control over where
they go to school. As this Committee knows, the more than
500,000 American children currently in foster care are among
the most at-risk in our society. Research shows that adults who
were formerly in foster care are more likely than the general
population to be homeless, dependent on State services and to
be convicted of crimes and incarcerated.
Early warning signs of these problems are evident in the
classroom where foster children often struggle. Compared to the
general population, foster children have lower scores on
standardized tests and higher dropout rates. This is not
surprising when one considers the problems that foster children
often face in the classroom, such as instability and frequent
school transfers, the kinds of things we have heard about
today.
Here in Washington, D.C., 40 percent of the children in
foster care have experienced four or more placements. Research
has shown that across the country home transfers often lead to
school transfers since one's school is often determined by
one's address. This instability has a damaging effect on a
child's academic progress and it also has harmful social
effects since a school transfer can mean the end of
friendships, social networks and relationships with adults, all
of which can be very important for kids in foster care who have
unstable family lives.
One way to address this and other problems and to provide
better educational opportunities would be to give foster
children more control and more options over where they attend
school. Offering tuition scholarships, or school vouchers, to
children in foster care could yield important benefits. First,
a scholarship could provide foster children with stability. A
scholarship or choice option could often allow a child to
remain in the same school even when he or she changes homes.
Second, for other children, a scholarship could provide an
option to transfer into a school that offers a better
educational experience. Third, a tuition scholarship program
could allow students to attend schools that offer specialized
services that cater to a foster child's specific needs.
So, what can Congress do to advance this important policy
goal? Providing social services and education is primarily the
responsibility of State and local governments, not the Federal
Government. However, the Congress can take a number of steps to
advance this reform initiative and improve educational
opportunities for children in foster care. First, Congress
should request that GAO compile research on the frequency of
foster children's school transfers and the need to improve
educational opportunities for children in foster care. Second,
Congress should reform the Chafee Foster Care Independence
Program to allow states to improve educational opportunities
for younger children.
Through the Chafee program, states currently can provide
education and job training vouchers to foster children who are
sixteen years old or older. For many foster children, this
assistance can come too late. Congress should give states the
flexibility to use funds allocated through the Chafee program
to provide K-12 scholarships if State leaders believe this is
the best use of funds.
Finally, since the Federal Government has oversight over
the District of Columbia, Congress should provide opportunity
scholarships to foster children in Washington, D.C. In 2004,
Congress created a school voucher program for low-income
students in the District. This program has proven very popular
with parents and participating families. Congress should expand
this program or create a new program to give scholarships to
foster children living in the District.
I have expanded on these ideas in my written testimony, but
I will honor my time and close by saying: Giving foster
children the ability to attend the school of their choice will
not address all the problems they face in life or in the
classroom but it can give some of our most at-risk kids a
chance for a better life. Since they are charges of the State,
foster children are, in a sense, ``all of our children.'' We
should not be satisfied until every child in foster care has a
stable and high-quality education, the foundation for a
successful life. Giving foster children school choice would be
a promising step toward accomplishing this important goal.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be
here today, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lips follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dan Lips, Education Analyst,
The Heritage Foundation
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify today. My name is Dan Lips. I am an Education
Analyst at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this
testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any
official position of The Heritage Foundation.
I am here today to testify about the need to improve educational
opportunities for children in foster care. Specifically, I will discuss
why Federal and State policymakers should reform education policies to
provide greater school choice options for foster children.
Introduction
The more than 500,000 children currently in foster care are among
the most at-risk children in American society. Research shows that
adults who were formerly in foster care are more likely than the
general population to succumb to poor life outcomes.
They are more likely to be homeless, unprepared for employment and
limited to low-job skills, and dependent on welfare or Medicaid. They
are also more likely than the general population to be convicted of
crimes and incarcerated, to abuse drugs and alcohol, or to have poor
physical or mental health. Research has shown that women who have been
in foster care experience higher rates of early pregnancy and are more
likely to see their own children placed in foster care.
Many of these problems are at least in part a product of problems
in the classroom where foster children tend to have lower educational
attainment than their peers. Foster children on average have lower
scores on standardized tests and higher absenteeism, tardiness, truancy
and dropout rates. Overall, a synthesis of available research evidence
published by the Child Welfare League of America found that, ``Almost
all of the reviewed studies of those who were in out-of-home care
revealed that the subject's level of educational attainment is below
that of other citizens of comparable age.''
This is not surprising when one considers the many problems and
challenges that foster children commonly experience at school. These
common problems include instability, persistent low-expectations, poor
adult advocacy on their behalf, inadequate life-skills training, and a
failure to receive needed special education services.
Instability and Low Expectations: Root Causes of Poor Educational
Outcomes
One of the biggest problems foster children face is instability.
Children in long-term foster care often experience multiple out-of-home
placements. For example, here in Washington, D.C., 40 percent of the
children in the District's foster care system have experienced four or
more placements.
Out-of-home placements often lead to school transfers since where
one attends school is often tied to where one lives. For example, the
Vera Institute of Justice reports that in New York City between 1995
and 1999, 42 percent of children changed schools within 30 days of
entering foster care.
Research evidence suggests that frequent school transfers and
disruptions in the learning process can take a toll on a student's
development. For example, a study by the General Accounting Office
reported that third-grade students who had experienced frequent school
changes were more likely to perform below grade level in reading and
math or to repeat a grade than were students who had never changed
schools.
It is not surprising, therefore, that frequent school transfers
would negatively affect foster children. A research synthesis reported
that former foster children who experienced fewer out-of-home
placements performed better in school and completed more years of
education than did others in foster care. A survey of former foster
children found that they ``strongly believed that they had been shifted
around too much while in foster care, and as a result, they suffered,
especially in terms of education.''
It is clear how instability causes problems. School transfers
create gaps in the learning cycle. They force children to adjust to new
classroom settings, teachers, and classmates and cause children to lose
social networks, peer groups, and relationships with adults--
relationships that can be particularly important to foster care
children with tumultuous family lives. These changes can exacerbate the
emotional instability and unrest caused by the home transfers
themselves. Reducing instability for foster children is identified by
researchers and advocates as a way to improve the foster care system.
In addition to disruptions in their educational environment, adults
formerly in foster care report that the foster system did not encourage
high aspirations for their education. One survey found that older youth
in foster care have high aspirations and resent others' low
expectations. They also reported that they would have benefited from
stronger adult encouragement.
Addressing the Need for Greater Stability, High Expectations and Better
Educational Opportunities
There is no single solution to all of the challenges and problems
that foster children face in school and at home. Ideally, every child
in the foster care system would become a part of a stable, loving,
permanent home with adults committed to nurturing their talents and
skills. However, policymakers can embrace measures to alleviate some of
the stresses associated with foster care that contribute to lower
educational attainment and poor life outcomes.
One promising reform solution would be to provide foster children
with more control and more options for where they attend school. For
example, offering tuition scholarships--or school vouchers--to children
in foster care would be an important step in encouraging greater
stability in their education--indeed in their lives--and open the door
to better educational opportunities for many students.
In 2006, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, signed
legislation to create the nation's first K-12 tuition scholarship
program for foster children. Under this program, approximately 500
foster children will be awarded $5,000 tuition scholarships to attend
private school starting in the fall of 2007.
The Benefits of Providing Scholarships to Foster Children
A scholarship program for children in foster care, like the new
program created in Arizona, could provide a number of important
benefits:
First, a tuition scholarship could provide foster
children with stability. A scholarship or choice option could
allow a child to remain in the same school (whenever
geographically possible) even when placed in a new home
setting. This could have educational and social benefits.
Allowing a child to remain in the same school could prevent
disruptions in the learning process. Importantly, it would also
allow a child to maintain peer groups, friendships, and
important relationships with adults.
Second, for other children, a tuition scholarship
could allow some children to transfer into schools that offer a
better educational experience. Academic studies have reported
that students participating in school voucher programs have
improved academically compared to their peers who remain in
public school. For example, the school voucher program in
Milwaukee has been subject to two randomized-experiment studies
that found that students who received vouchers through a
lottery made academic gains when compared to their peers who
remained in public school. Similar studies of private school
choice programs in Charlotte, North Carolina, New York City,
and Washington, D.C. reached similar conclusions.
Third, a tuition scholarship program could allow
students to attend schools that offer specialized services that
cater to a foster child's unique needs. Many schools are
unequipped to offer the specialized services that foster
children may need. Allowing for greater choice could give
families the opportunity to select the most appropriate school
for their child. It could also give schools an incentive to
specialize, innovate, and deliver the specialized education
services that foster children may need, such as counseling,
tutoring, remedial instruction, and life skills training.
Fourth, a tuition scholarship program could improve
family satisfaction and involvement in children's education.
Most foster parents are dedicated individuals who want the best
for the children in their care. However, many lack the
resources needed to give that child the education that he or
she deserves. They need and deserve assistance in creating an
environment that will help their child thrive. A school choice
program would give foster parents the ability to provide their
children a quality education, which would likely improve the
foster care experience for both children and parents.
How Congress Can Help Encourage School Choice for Foster Children
Providing social services and education, of course, is primarily
the responsibility of state and local governments, not the federal
government. Indeed states and localities are beginning to embrace the
idea of school choice for children in foster care. This idea of
providing tuition scholarships is gaining momentum across the country.
In addition to the new program that was created in Arizona in 2006,
other states are considering legislation to provide school choice
scholarships to children in foster care. In 2007, state legislators in
at least four states--Florida, Maryland, Tennessee, and Texas--have
considered similar initiatives. The American Legislative Exchange
Council has created model legislation to provide opportunity
scholarships to children in foster care.
However, Congress can take a number of steps to advance this reform
initiative and improve educational opportunities for children in foster
care:
First, Congress should request that the GAO compile research on the
frequency of foster children's school transfers and the need to improve
educational opportunities for children in foster care. The federal
government has the opportunity to work through the Administration for
Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services to
study this problem and highlight the need for reform.
Second, Congress should reform the Chafee Foster Care Independence
Act to allow states to implement programs to improve educational
opportunities for younger children. The Chafee program provides funding
grants to states to assist older foster youth and former foster
children in the process of attaining independence in adulthood. For
example, through the program, states can award ``education and training
vouchers'' to older youths (age 16 and older) who are aging out of the
foster care system.
However, the education aid offered by the Chafee Foster Care
Independence Act may come too late in many cases because it targets
foster children 16 years old and older. Foster children throughout the
K-12 education system have a number of unique needs. Providing
education choice and flexibility to younger students could provide them
with a more solid educational foundation, helping them to achieve
academic success, social stability, and adult self-sufficiency.
Congress should give states the flexibility to use funds allocated
through the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program to promote K-12
education options for younger children in foster care if state
policymakers believe that this would be the best use of funds to
prepare foster children for independence in adulthood.
Third, since the federal government has oversight over the District
of Columbia, Congress should provide opportunity scholarships to foster
children in Washington, D.C. In 2004, Congress created a school voucher
program for low-income students in Washington, D.C. This program has
proven very popular with parents. All of the program's 1,800
scholarships are currently subscribed. And, in all, 6,500 children have
applied for scholarships. A recent evaluation of the program conducted
by Georgetown University researchers found that the parents of
participating students were very satisfied with their children's
experience in the program and have become more involved in their
education.
There is good reason to believe that many more children would
benefit from opportunity scholarships, including the approximately
1,800 school-aged children in foster care living in Washington, D.C.
Congress should expand the existing Opportunity Scholarship program to
allow more children to participate, and it should expand the
eligibility requirements to ensure that all foster children can
participate. As an alternative, Congress could create a new program
that specifically focuses on providing opportunity scholarships for
children in foster care in Washington, D.C.
Conclusion
It is clear that giving foster children the ability to attend a
safe and high quality school of choice will not address all of the
problems they face, but it can give some of our most at-risk children
in our society a chance for a better life.
Consider the words of Lisa Dickson, a former foster child, who
graduated from high school and went on to succeed in college and
graduate school. Ms. Dickson, now an advocate for foster children,
wrote an essay ``What the Arizona Foster Voucher Program Would Have
Meant to Me'':
``As I look back on my experience in foster care, educational
vouchers would have benefited me if they had made it possible for me to
attend one high school, rather than five. I don't know that I would
have chosen a private school, rather than a public one. I do know that
I never received college preparatory counseling at any of the high
schools I attended. I also know that having one teacher and one
textbook, and perhaps also some individualized tutoring, would have
helped me to master algebra. There was no individualized educational
attention given, at home or at school, to any of the teenagers from the
group homes where I resided. No special tutoring was made available to
foster youth who were failing their classes.''
Since foster children are charges of the state, they are, in a
sense, all of our children. We should not be satisfied until every
child in foster care has the opportunity to have a stable and high
quality education that prepares him or her to succeed in life. I
believe creating a voluntary, school choice scholarship program for
children in foster care is a promising step toward accomplishing this
important goal.
Mr. Chairman, I'd again like to thank you for the opportunity to
testify about this important issue today. I look forward to your
questions.
__________
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Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank
all the witnesses for your testimonies and they will be entered
into the record. I would like to ask a couple of questions
beginning with Jewel and Mr. Whitfield. You talked about living
in your home, we are talking about disconnectedness, and if you
are living in your car over several different periods, and you
are living in a house where you did not have anybody who seemed
to be running your life or trying to organize your life, who
reached out to you? Or, did you reach out and were rejected by
the system? Did you try to leave and go to a more stable
situation? You said you were sick, how did you deal with the
system out there? I would like to hear what goes through a
kid's head when they are out there and looking at the system
and knowing they need something, but what happened to you?
Ms. KILCHER. Go ahead.
Mr. WHITFIELD. Actually, I used to be a foster kid when I
was younger, and I was in the system for about two years. I
came home with my family because they had rehabilitated over
the course of the time, the environment that I was in, like the
neighborhood, so I began to hang outside with the neighborhood
crew so at that particular time my family, they just started
like pushing away or whatever. I went to jail for a juvenile
case. When I was released, the foster care people dropped the
case that they had or whatever with me, so I just felt like my
friends are all I have, which makes you feel bad.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Okay.
Jewel?
Ms. KILCHER. I was never in foster care. I did not like
adults, I did not really trust adults and had never seen an
adult give you something without wanting something. So, I
stayed away from any institution possible. I just tried to not
make friends, but just really keep to myself. I was not aware
that there were programs. Hearing the congresswoman speak
earlier, I wanted to camp out on her lawn, I liked her so much.
I did not know people like that existed. There was a doctor
when I was sick, I was turned away from all the emergency
rooms, but one doctor would not see me but he gave me the card
of a doctor. That doctor ended up just being a very nice man
who actually did not try to have sex with me and treated me. He
ended up being the one that helped to get medicine that I could
not afford.
I think had I known about programs, there is sort of this
stigma that there are kids out there and they are just tough.
Well, kids do not want to be tough, kids want to be loved. If
you give any of us a shot, we will respond. Looking back and
being able to come through what I have come through, I think I
am a much stronger and more dependable, more loyal person than
most people who I know who have been through less, but it was
because I was sort of given a shot by one or two people that
actually had kindness. I had a song called ``Hands,'' and the
line in it is, ``In the end, only kindness matters'' because
institutions did not change my life, but kindness did.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. How do we set up the situation for
adults to go out looking for youngsters in a way that they can
get them in?
Dr. MINCY. Thank you for the question. I think the big
picture is that I deal with college students all the time. They
are protected in a way, they are there for an academic purpose,
but they have personal glitches and when they do, there are
counselors, there are health care providers, there is a system
to care for them, to keep them not only on their academic track
but also to help them when they get off track.
I think the big thing we need to hear about disconnected
youth is that there is no system because they are out of school
and out of the workplace, they are not on any basic track but
when they encounter problems, there is no track for them. The
whole field of youth development, the field that is working to
reconnect them, has to rely upon funding streams that come from
very different agencies with very different rules. It also has
to rely upon funding from sometimes public donors, sometimes
private donors and all of that funding is fickle. So, what you
are hearing is a non-system. Whether we happen to encounter
disconnected youth in homelessness or incarceration, that is
not the real answer.
The point is that when young people are out of school and
out of work, there is a non-system for them, and we need to
figure out how to reconnect and how to create something that
feels comprehensive and seamless when young people are off
track, and there are a lot of them. It is not only a social
justice, antipoverty purpose, it is that we need these young
people as workers and how can we work together to make sure
that there is a more coherent system for them?
Chairman MCDERMOTT. With the goal to return them to their
families?
Dr. MINCY. Not necessarily. We are talking about young
people who are between 18 and 24 years old with a goal to help
them transition to adulthood like your children and mine.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. When do you stop trying to send them
home, how old?
Ms. KILCHER. I did not want to be sent home, I think most
children, would be home otherwise. If their homes were great,
they would be there. I would not suggest sending them home in
general but that is just me.
Ms. SHORE. I would like to say though that the programs
that do exist are very effective, although small. We see 1,500
young people a year and when you say, ``How do we make that
connection,'' we do it in all kinds of ways. There is an
outreach van, there is the Safe Place Program that we
participate in also, so that every single firehouse in the city
has a sign and urges young people to go in. We go to high
schools, but this is a constant process because you are talking
about every year there are 10 and 11 year olds that have not
heard about the programs. So, you continually need to be
reaching out and making those connections.
There certainly are not enough services and there certainly
is a lot of disconnection. I do want to say that I think that
the nascent services that exist in the Runaway and Homeless
Youth Act programs are very good, they are solid. There is a
lot of effort, at least I know in our program, to identify the
kids that can go home and do the necessary work with the
families so that they can in fact return or to identify when
that really is not a likely possibility because families have
come apart in many cases. We have to recognize that there is
another whole set of young people here that are older, that the
foster care system is not interested in taking in and whose
families are dying or so sick that they really cannot take care
of them or in jail. There is a whole group of young people that
I think have not really been touched on yet but need to get
added as well.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. We may not get it all done today. That
is what you are telling me, right?
Ms. SHORE. No, but I think that we should recognize that
there is some hope in that there are things that are working,
that we already know about, we have the technology for, we just
need to really have the will to expand them, to say this is
essential.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. I move to Mr. Weller. Mr. Weller?
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an important
hearing, and I appreciate your organizing this. I think we have
heard some very helpful testimony from a variety of people
before the Subcommittee this morning. I have a number of
questions. To begin, I am very uncomfortable calling someone by
their first name.
Ms. KILCHER. Kilcher is my last name.
Mr. WELLER. Ms. Kilcher, just to be polite, one of our
witnesses in a previous hearing when we were looking at child
poverty, Isabelle Sawhill with the Brookings Institution, which
is a research institution here--a respected one here in
Washington, testified that those who finish high school, work
full time, and only have children after getting married are
more likely to live out of poverty and in the middle class.
That is a common message we see as we study lifting families,
and particularly kids, out of poverty. You have achieved
success, clearly in listening to your story, the hard way. I
admire you and your ability and the challenges you have had to
achieve the success that you have had.
Mr. WELLER. Do you have a high school diploma?
Ms. KILCHER. Yes, sir.
Mr. WELLER. After you moved out of your family household,
did you continue your education even though you were living
outside of the house?
Ms. KILCHER. I did not continue my education. It was really
difficult going to high school. I was still paying for tuition
to go to the school I was going to.
Mr. WELLER. You were going to a special academy?
Ms. KILCHER. Yes, I had a partial scholarship.
Mr. WELLER. Okay, so while you were living out?
Ms. KILCHER. While I was homeless, yes, I went to a private
art school.
Mr. WELLER. While you were homeless, you went to a private
school. Your peers, your friends, you talked about some of the
other girls, were they still in school?
Ms. KILCHER. As I mentioned, I probably went to nine or 10
different schools in my life so I did not really have normal
friends. I moved on every three to six months. While I was
homeless and working, I did not really make friendships but I
tried to stick up for people if I could. I remember getting
fired from one job, my boss asked me to pose for a nude
calendar, and he did not mind that I would not, but then he
tried to get a girlfriend of mine to pose for it and she was
just scared. He could see that weakness in her eyes, and he
kept pushing her, and I just stuck up for her and he ended up
firing both of us.
Mr. WELLER. Were they still in high school?
Ms. KILCHER. She was trying to go to school. Yes, most kids
I have seen really are trying. They really want to. They are
trying to hold jobs or trying to----
Mr. WELLER. Who influences, obviously there is a culture at
this age, the values?
Ms. KILCHER. It is random.
Mr. WELLER. Do they receive them from entertainment, do
they receive them from reading the paper or where do they
receive their general values, whether it is pro-education or
attending school or working or trying to better themselves?
Ms. KILCHER. It is a really random thing to see whatever is
able to come into your life that gives you hope. Some days it
would just be something like the kindness of a stranger giving
me $5. I did not know anybody that was telling me about these
programs. If I had, I would have been very interested but I
just did not happen to come across any kind of grassroots, word
of mouth thing that spread the worth.
Mr. WELLER. Now, you are an entertainer, right?
Ms. KILCHER. Of the singing variety.
Mr. WELLER. You are a songwriter, you sing, and you do a
lot of things but do you feel that for young people that the
message that is coming from entertainment, whether it is music
or going to the movies or watching movies or video, is pro-
education, is encouraging them to further their education?
Ms. KILCHER. Oh, there are all kinds. The reason I think I
was able to be successful was people identified with certain
kind of longing I had and a certain kind of passion and it
helped other people feel better, but that was just my music.
Mr. WELLER. Are they listening--when they are listening to
music, are they receiving a message that is pro-education and
encourage them to go back to school?
Ms. KILCHER. It depends on the artist. For some it is an
aphrodisiac, some it is an escape. There are different purposes
for different styles of music.
Mr. WELLER. For young people, entertainers do have a
significant influence. We can all admit to that.
Ms. KILCHER. Yes, I would say----
Mr. WELLER. Do you think they have a responsibility to
encourage education?
Ms. KILCHER. Every person has the responsibility to try and
be the best person they can be. You cannot put that to bear on
any one person better than they can bear it.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you. Mr. Lips, you were here for
Congresswoman Bachmann's testimony and she was talking about
the challenge with the 23 foster children that she had and the
experiences of trying to ensure they had a good education and
the experience of children changing schools and the rules of
existing programs. Even though her children were attending, I
believe, a parochial school or a private school, the rules
prohibited them, if they could afford it, from enrolling the
foster kids in the same school as their biological kids. Can
you outline some of your thoughts about what some solutions are
to maybe help give those young people more of an opportunity?
Mr. LIPS. Thank you, Congressman Weller. I was really
impressed by Congresswoman Bachmann's remarks. The idea of
providing every child with the opportunity to attend a school
of choice is a really simple way I think to improve their
lives. Last year, Arizona created a program to offer school
vouchers to children who have been placed in foster care. It
was signed into law by Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat,
and it is going to begin serving children this fall, about 500
kids will receive scholarships. If Ms. Bachmann had lived in
Arizona, she would have been able to apply this program and
choose the right school for her child. It could be a public
school, it could be a charter school or it could be a private
school. I think that this is a very simple and small way to
make a difference in these children's lives, either by keeping
them in the same school, a focus of stability, or by offering a
new opportunity that would improve their lives.
Mr. WELLER. I have read where it takes children months to
readjust if they go from one school to another, to make new
friends, develop peers, and hopefully end up in the right
crowd. Would this type of program, say if someone is in a
foster program in the same city and there is a family providing
them a home but they are on the other side of town, would this
type of program allow them to continue to go to the school
elsewhere in the city they were previously attending so they
could continue to be around their friends and the relationships
they currently have?
Mr. LIPS. Absolutely, that is the purpose. We see that
school transfers can lead to learning setbacks and emotional
setbacks. A scholarship program like this would allow a child
to remain in the same school, whether it is a public or charter
or private school as one focus of stability in an otherwise
often unstable life.
Mr. WELLER. Last, Congresswoman Bachmann referred to the
situation when she and her husband were interested in enrolling
their foster children in the same private school where their
children attend and their foster kids were asking for that
opportunity but the rules of their program prohibited them. Can
you explain what those rules are, are you familiar with those?
Mr. LIPS. I am not familiar with the exact laws in
Minnesota. I would suspect, I believe that that State had an
open enrollment law, which would require the child to attend
any public school in the area but it would certainly limit the
option of choosing between a public and private school, which
it sounds like Congresswoman Bachmann was looking to do. I
think that this is why we should offer a full range of choices.
These kids are so at risk. Anything we can do to give them a
leg up would be really important and beneficial, I believe.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you. You have been generous with time,
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. Meek?
Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had to step out for a
moment, but I did get an opportunity to hear from most of our
witnesses that are here. It is interesting because in my
district back in Miami, I represent Miami and South Broward
County and South Beach on the weekends, I would admit to that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. MEEK. Anything to help the economy, but, in all
seriousness, I had an opportunity to hear from all of you. I am
glad that you recognized the increase in funding, that we are
trying to move in that direction here in this new Congress.
I wanted to ask, and this is a general question for the
panel, as it relates to at-risk youth and the funding that we
are talking about and the programs that are on shoe-string
budgets, working with what they have, in this time of pay-as-
you-go, as we are looking to bring the budget into balance,
what are some of the arguments we can use as Members of
Congress? We do not have a day like this everyday in Congress
where we have real people that come and share real experience
with us and for us to make real decisions and follow through on
it several months down the road.
What are some of the reasons why Congress should invest
even further in making sure that not only young people have
options where their lives have not been what you may read in a
storybook or you may see a usual kind of situation, you go
through a K through 12 experience and then you move on to
higher education and then you get a post-graduate degree and
then you move on to this great, wonderful job, it is not like
that for everyone, and we do understand that. How do we tell
that story beyond this Subcommittee on the reason we should not
only increase funding but also target the very young adults,
when we talk about young adults, those that are over 18, how do
we target them, how do we carry this story forward?
Ms. KILCHER. I would say three things spring to my mind, if
I may. One is it saves money in the long run. There have been a
lot of studies done on if you can help kids get an education
now, that they are going to stay out of the system later. If
you can give them help now, we would like to stay out of being
arrested and those things if you can give us a legitimate way
to make money and many of us were willing. I forget what the
numbers are, but I do know it saves money in the long run to
try and help kids at a younger age stay out of the system.
Also, throughout history, some of the greatest achievers of
any society have come from unlikely places. I think that
homeless kids have a lot to give if you can see what treasures
their minds are. They are not disposable and often can
contribute more than a lot of what I would call somewhat--kids
that were well off that sometimes became lazy in the system
because of the luxury of being lazy. Then, thirdly, I would say
that it is--I forgot my third point, I am sure someone else
will have a good one.
[Laughter.]
Mr. MEEK. As we start to go down answering my question, Mr.
Whitfield, I know that you were sharing with us, and, Dr. Burt,
I want to make sure that we get to you next, but, Mr.
Whitfield, I want you thinking about some of your experiences
and how you deal with these issues because I will tell you that
I have family members that have had similar events in their
lives, maybe not just the same, but similar events where they
were challenged and fell into this whole unemployable, folks do
not want to take the risk or take the chance and giving someone
an opportunity, what are some things that we need to what we
call in Washington ``stay the course'' on these issues? All of
you on the panel and, Mr. Chairman, ``you had me at `hello' ''
on this issue, but I think it is important that we are able to
give life to it beyond this Committee. Obviously, we sit on
this Subcommittee, we have some interest in this subject area.
So, I am going to get to you, Mr. Whitfield, because I thought
you had a very revealing testimony, and I am glad that you are
here today.
Dr. Burt?
Dr. BURT. Oh, thank you. Well, I just wanted to say that
the basic argument is that you cannot afford not to in two
senses, one is that, as Dr. Mincy had said, and I am sure he
has a lot more statistics on it than I do, basically right now
we are throwing away about a quarter of every youth cohort that
comes along. Twenty-five percent at least do not graduate from
high school and many of those that do, do not have any real
functional capacity to be operating at the level of jobs that
will allow them to actually be self-sufficient. A little bit
fewer than those but still a very significant number who drop
out and so on, we cannot afford to throw those people away as
workers. Number two, we cannot afford what happens to them and
what we need to pay for when they end up in the criminal
justice system, when they end up in the mental health system,
when they end up in such so-called substance abuse systems. We
just cannot afford it. We are paying one way or we are paying
the other, and it makes much more sense to be investing in them
to be productive citizens than not.
That gets me back to a point that I wanted to make an
earlier question, which is really in addition to investing in
those who we have already failed in a lot of ways, it is
really, really important to recognize that you can often tell
who is going to be in trouble when you look at first graders
and you realize that they are not being taught to read.
So, we just had a story in The Washington Post a couple of
days ago about Philadelphia turning its schools around and
really focusing on making sure that nobody gets out of first
grade without knowing how to read. We have evaluation reports
on very, very large mechanisms, such as Success for All, Comer
Schools. We know how to make sure that kids get off on the
right track when they are in school, and especially focusing on
the ones who are least likely to succeed because of their home
environments. So, both that very early investment is really
important as well as the argument that you cannot afford not
to.
Mr. MEEK. Mr. Whitfield?
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Whitfield, do you have anything to
add to this?
Mr. WHITFIELD. I think that there should be more summer
jobs out there like something to keep the youth occupied and
things to do during the school year too, after school or
whatever, so it would give people less time to just loiter
around, to keep them occupied 24/7.
My second one is the youth out there with a lack of
education, I think that it should be GED programs, more ways
for them to get some type of education, and for them to be able
to have some type of financing for themselves or whatever so
they can really support themselves and do not have to look
toward the street corner to make money. I think that stops a
lot of people from going to school right there because when you
are in high school, you want to dress properly. If you do not
have the type of money to dress properly, people ``clown'' you
or whatever, do things like that, so I think there should be
more ways for them to be able to finance themselves, have
financing.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. Lewis?
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
let me thank you so much for holding this hearing. I think a
hearing of this nature is needed now more than ever before. I
want to thank all of the witnesses for being here. Jewel, as
someone who knows what it is to be young, homeless, you never
gave up, you never gave in, what pushed you? I missed the
earlier part of your testimony, but I read it and do you have a
message that you can send to other young people through your
music or through your words?
Ms. KILCHER. Yes, I have tried to always let my lyrics
represent what I have tried to struggle for in my own life in
hopes that it helps people. I think that every child feels
innately that there is a special spark in them, and you should
not be thinking about that, you should just be thinking about
having fun.
At the most fundamental levels, when you are so concerned
with surviving to the point where you are trying to figure out
where your food and where your sleep and your shelter is going
to come from, the thing I tried to foster most was just to try
not to let that little spark die, whatever that is in every
child. Every child really feels they have. The only time I saw
kids lose the battle on the streets is when they stopped
feeling that spark. Sometimes the smallest act would help me
feel good about humanity and other times it was genuine large
acts of kindness, like a doctor helping you for no reason when
you have no money.
I cannot say what inspires some kids to find help and
others not. I cannot tell you the difference in what that is, I
just know that I met more kids that were willing to do anything
for the words ``I love you'' than not. I have never really
honestly met a ``bad seed,'' maybe one, that you would
genuinely call somebody that was genuinely hard to even get
through to. So, it is hard for me to answer your question, I am
not sure why I continued, but I know that the resilience of
youth has shocked me perpetually.
Mr. LEWIS. So, you are suggesting to the Committee and to
all of us that there is something within all human beings,
young, whatever, that ``spark'' you call it, the ``spirit'' or
whatever that is there, I am not going to let it fade away or
go away and will continue to push?
Ms. KILCHER. I think ultimately that is what we are all
trying to nurture through education, through trying to give you
a support system for money, all of that, you are trying to--
that is why we are all here, it is humanity.
Mr. LEWIS. So, since we have you here, there is a little
gospel song that says something like, ``We fall down but we get
up,'' but we do not get up alone, we need help. We need Youth
Build, we need Job Corps, we need the intervention of the
Federal Government.
Mr. Whitfield, coming in contact with jail, jail is not a
pleasant place to go. Some of my colleagues know that when I
was much younger, I went to jail a few times but it was
fighting for civil rights. I got arrested and went to jail 40
times. This weekend, I went to visit a young man that was in
jail in Georgia, 21 years old, probably one of the smartest
human beings I ever met.
Did you learn something, do you have a message for your
peers and for others that you can say jail is not a good place,
prison is not a good place and that you can do better, you can
come out whole?
Mr. WHITFIELD. My personal experience with jail, it kind of
like--I do not prefer, I do not suggest no one to go to jail.
Mr. LEWIS. I would not, either, it is not a pleasant place,
it is not a good place.
[Laughter.]
Mr. WHITFIELD. I prefer telling them, ``Stay away from it''
because it just builds up inside of you like you are not able
to do your everyday routine. It is like you are under a time
schedule. A lot of stuff going in between the time schedule,
your peers, the staff that run the facility, it just builds up
in the inside of you and just makes you mad. So, I do not know
how to break it down to the smallest terms.
Mr. LEWIS. I think you are breaking it down just fine. Do
you have a relationship with your grandmother today, do you
talk with her?
Mr. WHITFIELD. Oh, most definitely.
Mr. LEWIS. She is encouraging and telling you to go----
Mr. WHITFIELD. Most definitely. Now that my family pretty
much sees me in this path of straight success, they are pulling
into me, they are coming into me. First, I think they did not
have too much faith in me when I was coming up because of the
places that I chose to go and people I chose to hang around, so
they kind of like pushed me away. So, now that they see I am
doing something positive with myself, it is like they are
coming into me now. The family stopped using drugs, things are
pretty much getting better now that they see me doing something
positive on myself.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Thank you. Mr. Herger will inquire?
Mr. HERGER. Thank you. Mr. Whitfield, we are proud of you.
Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you.
Mr. HERGER. Needless to say, you can see how proud we are
of you, Jewel. You are really in a position, really both of you
are in positions to be role models for others. It is great to
see what you have done, the fact that you have rolled up your
sleeves and gone after it and made good decisions. We all make
some not-so-good decisions periodically during our lives, what
is important is that we can correct them.
Mr. Lips, I am interested particularly in some of what we
heard. We also heard from Congresswoman Bachmann on the
importance of education and how people get stereotyped in these
classes where they go. I forget the term she used, the ``dumb
math class,'' for the ``dumb kids'' or whatever, how easy that
is to have that happen. Could you tell me how foster children
are impacted--a little bit different, but I would like to get
around to that also--by the special education system and are
students receiving the services they deserve or are they being
under-served?
Mr. LIPS. Thank you, Congressman Herger. On that first
issue, this is a problem, low expectations is a problem that we
hear a lot about. There have been many focus groups of youth--
of adults who were formerly in foster care, and that is one of
the problems that they commonly identify, that people did not
expect much of them, and they were shuffled into the back of
the class and were not given the right opportunities. This is a
really important question--important problem that we should
consider as we are designing policies and try to address.
On that second issue that you mentioned of special
education, this is really important for foster children.
Research shows that between 30 to 40 percent of the children in
foster care also are eligible for special education services. I
believe Congresswoman Bachmann mentioned that all of the kids
that she took in had IEPs. If you are being shuffled around
from school to school, transferred, your paperwork gets lost,
you get shuffled through the system, and there are many stories
of kids either being under-served, not receiving the special
education services that they deserve or being over-served, kids
who could otherwise be benefited by being in the mainstream,
being shuffled into special education classes.
This is a reason, again, why we could benefit by providing
foster children with school choice options. There is a great
program in Florida called the McKay Scholarship Program that is
specifically tailored for special needs students. It is helping
16,000 kids, the approval rating or I should say satisfaction
rates among parents is above 90 percent. It is a great thing
and it is getting these kids the services that they need. It is
a model that we should look to, and thank you.
Mr. HERGER. Thank you, Mr. Lips. Mr. Whitfield, I am sorry
I had to step out for a while, but I did hear your testimony
and I am sure it is so very characteristic of so many. I
believe you mentioned how you were in school, you had fallen
behind, you were going to classes, you really did not feel good
at classes because you did not know how to answer the
questions.
I remember an experience I had myself when I was a junior
in high school. I was in a math class, a higher math class, and
I had the flu for a couple of weeks, and I was out and I was
never able to catch up again. I had a very bright teacher who
probably should have been teaching at Berkeley rather than at
our high school, but I was not able to catch up and, boy, that
feeling of being lost and hating to come to class when you just
do not seem to be able to get it.
Yet, it is amazing with assistance, with help, somebody
working with you, that you can catch up, you can do what you
need to do and you can do well. So, again, I want to commend
you.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the ranking member
for putting this hearing together. This is so incredibly
important. We have so many young people that are being lost
between the cracks, great lives that are just so lost out there
and if there is anything we can do, we should be doing. There
are many role models, we are seeing here today, with the two of
you who have been involved, and also, again, I am so touched
with our new Member of Congress, Michele Bachmann, on the story
with 28 or 29 that she has raised. We raised nine that were
ours, and we thought that was a lot, I cannot even imagine 28
or 29, but yet there are people who are doing that. I know
another family out where I live in Chico, California that has
done the same type of thing. These are very gifted people to be
able to do that, but yet we need to do it in every way we can.
So, again, I thank you very much.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. I cut Mr. Meek off from his time, I
give you one minute.
Mr. MEEK. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make a last
closing comment, and I want to thank not only you, Mr.
Chairman, but also the full Committee Chairman, Mr. Rangel,
because I know this is something that we have talked about in
closed quarters, about what we should do now that we have the
opportunity to do it. I just want to give words of
encouragement to not only Jewel but Mr. Whitfield, who came and
opened their lives up in a way that I know they have done
before but probably never before Congress. Being one, I have
dyslexia, and being able to talk with people, Charles Schwab
and Danny Glover and I did some of the similar things that you
are doing now, talking about our learning disability and how it
affected us as we grew up and how we deal with it as
professionals.
I want to let you know that your purpose here today, both
of your purposes, your story of talking about your
indiscretions, what you have done, your story of being homeless
and washing your hair and how people judge you, but I say to
both of you how do they like you now that you're here, that you
are sharing not only before the greatest democracy on the face
of the earth, your personal story to help others. So, I want to
commend both of you for holding the ladder in place to allow
others to climb up.
Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good day to be in Congress
and to be in this room to see these two very great Americans
share their stories and open their lives and to the
professionals that are working in the field helping people, I
want to let you know if it was not for you, there would be no
us, those of us who need the assistance, and we appreciate you
for being in the field. That is all I wanted to stay, Mr.
Chairman. I look forward to working and for progress on this
issue as we continue to tackle issues that come before this
Committee.
Thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Mr. Weller has a unanimous consent.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been an
interesting hearing, and I just want to ask unanimous consent
to include in the record some additional information from
several respected groups. The first is a summary of how many
youth drop out of high school titled, ``Every Nine Seconds in
America a Student Becomes a Dropout.'' This was prepared by the
non-partisan American Youth Policy Forum based on a number of
studies. The second is a fact sheet put together by the Casey
Family Programs based in Seattle, Washington about educational
outcomes specifically for children in foster care. Third and
last is a statement about the need to promote educational
success for young people in foster care, which was put together
by the National Foster Youth Advisory Council. I ask unanimous
consent to include these as part of the record.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. Without objection, so ordered.
[The provided material follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMT]
Mr. WELLER. Thank you.
Chairman MCDERMOTT. I want to thank you all for coming and
spending the time as you have sat here for a couple of hours.
As Mr. Meek said, the most important thing we miss is personal
testimonials. We hear experts come in and talk to us but it is
really good to have a couple of people come and tell us what
really happens to them. That puts a public face on it that
makes it very powerful, so thank you very much for both of you
coming and exposing yourself, talking about tough things in
life. We appreciate it.
Thank you all. The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:00 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the Record follow:]
Statement of Center for Law and Social Policy
Thank you for focusing attention on this most important challenge
related to our youth and thank you for the opportunity to submit
testimony to the subcommittee. I am the Director for Youth Policy at
the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). CLASP is a nonprofit
organization engaged in research, analysis, technical assistance, and
advocacy on a range of issues affecting low-income families. Our youth
policy work at CLASP has focused attention on the dimensions of the
disconnected youth challenge in our nation and on the need to look more
strategically at how our youth serving systems--education, workforce,
juvenile justice, child welfare--can come together and in tandem with
the business community and community based organizations create the
infrastructure and support to connect our youth to positive pathways to
adult success.
The desperate situation in many of our poor urban, rural, and
minority communities where fewer than half of the youth that start high
school complete four years later necessitates bold, strategic thinking
and comprehensive interventions.
I am submitting for the record an article ``What's a Youngster to
Do? The Education and Labor Market Plight of Youth in High Poverty
Communities'' that I authored and that was published in the July 2005
issue of the Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy.
The challenges and solutions outlined in this article are very relevant
to the subject matter of this hearing and the work of the subcommittee.
This article draws attention to the dimensions of the youth challenge
in several high poverty communities. It also points out that we know a
great deal about what works to transform the pathways for these youth.
It suggests the need for a new paradigm. One that recognizes that if
this issue is to be solved it will require all systems and sectors to
participate at the ground level building the system connections,
supports, programs and pathways that will be needed to upgrade the
skills of these youth and to secure their economic future. It will
require the collective will, the resources, and an investment in
building the capacity and the programming in these communities to
address this problem at the scale necessary to produce measurable and
sustainable improvements in the education and labor market outcomes for
these young people who, absent intervention, will have extreme
difficulty with adult labor market, family, and civic responsibilities.
__________
What's a Youngster To Do? The Education and Labor Market Plight of
Youth in High Poverty Communities
Linda Harris, Director, Youth Policy
Center for Law and Social Policy
Published in The Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty Law and Policy
July/August 2005
``Our economy, national security, and social cohesion face a precarious
future if our nation fails to develop now the comprehensive policies
and programs needed to help all youth. In developing these polices and
programs, it is crucial to recognize the growing gap between more
fortunate youth and those with far fewer advantages. . . . Unless we
are motivated, at least in part, by our belief in young people and our
sense of obligation to them, we risk losing more than we can ever hope
to win.'' William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and
Citizenship, The Forgotten Half: Non-College Youth in America, 1988
For almost two decades researchers and economists warned about an
impending crisis for the young and the unskilled in the labor market.
Those tracking the demographic trends, the labor market shifts, the
immigration patterns, and the global influences predicted that, absent
substantial intervention, youth, especially youth in the urban core,
would face perilous times coming into the 21st century. Economist in
the 1987 publication Workforce 2000 noted that most new jobs created in
the nineties and beyond would require some level of post-secondary
education. They cautioned that without substantial adjustment in
policies and without investments being made in education and training,
the problems of minority unemployment, crime and dependency would be
worse in the year 2000.\1\ The National Center on Education and the
Economy in their 1990 report America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages
noted that 1 in 5 young people in this country grow up in third world
surroundings and start out with severe learning disadvantages from
which they never recover. They recommended the investment in a dropout
recovery system that would build the connection between education and
work for youth without high school certification.\2\ Despite these
admonitions, federal investment in employment, training and second
chance programs decreased dramatically over the ensuing 15 years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Johnson, W., Packer, A., Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for
the 21st Century, Hudson Institute, U.S. Department of Labor, 1987.
\2\ National Center on Education and the Economy, America's Choice:
High Skills or Low Wages!, 1990, pg. 44.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The future that these studies predicted is upon us, with the
attending consequences. While the national graduation rate for youth in
public school is an appalling 68%, the rate for youth in high poverty
urban districts is below 50%. The lack of attention and public will
around this issue is attributable in part to the fact that the
aggregate statistics on graduation rates and employment rates for the
nation's youth masks the stark reality of the problem for youth in poor
urban, rural, or minority communities. This situation goes largely
unattended because this is an invisible constituency. When young people
drop out, or disconnect, or stop looking for work they are no longer
counted in any system or any statistic unless they find their way to
the public welfare system or the criminal justice system as many of
them do. No public institution or system is called upon to account for
the preparation and transition of youth to the labor market.
Prevailing sentiment would rest that responsibility with the parent
and student and that would be quite appropriate if we were talking
about a small minority of students falling by the wayside. However,
when more than half of the young people attending public school in a
community leave school before graduating, the problem is beyond that of
parental and personal responsibility. It is evidence of the breakdown
of the education, community, and economic infrastructure that in
healthy communities prepares and supports youth as they transition to
adulthood. In economically distressed communities these institutions
are overburdened, under-resourced, broken, or simply incapable of
providing the level of support needed to prepare these youth for
successful transition to adulthood and the labor market.
This article focuses a lens on the situation for youth in selected
large cities with poverty rates above 30% and with school districts
that have more than 60% of their students eligible for free or reduced
lunches. Twelve cities were selected to amplify the challenges faced by
young people growing up in these urban areas: Atlanta, Baltimore,
Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Fresno, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, New
York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Totally, just over 3 million
students were enrolled in these districts, 86.1% of them minority.
Table 1 displays the general profile of distress in these communities.
Consider the prospects for these youth. One in three resides in a
household that is below the poverty level, twice the national average.
They live in communities where the rate of violent crime is 3 times the
national average. Youth are twice as likely to be arrested and almost
twice as likely to be a teen parent. Only one in two youth entering
high school will graduate and only 14% of minority youth will complete
4 years of college (compared to 49.7% of White youth). This environment
of low achievement, low expectations, early exposure to violent and
illicit activity, and lack of exposure to positive pathways out,
constrains the life options for young people. It is a daunting
landscape for an adolescent to navigate. There are youth who will
graduate and go on to post-secondary success. They will do so against
considerable odds.
Equally bleak are the labor market prospects for youth who don't
complete high school in these communities. The chart below presents a
few labor market statistics from the 2000 Decennial Census. While this
profile is as of the last census, recent analysis by the Center for
Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University shows a worsening
situation for teens in the labor market with teen employment being at
its lowest level in 57 years. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Sum, A., Khatiwada, I., McLaughlin, J., Palma, S. The Paradox
of Rising Teen Joblessness in an Expanding Labor Market: The Absence of
Teen Employment Growth in the National Jobs Recovery of 2003-2004,
Center For Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, January 2005.
Table 1: Profile of High Poverty Cities
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% below poverty line \2\ Violent Juvenile % teens
City School % Minority ------------------------------------ crime rate arrest rate Teen Graduation \6\
Enrollment \1\ \1\ Total Black Hispanic \3\ (100,000) \4\ births \5\ rate \1\ employed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Atlanta 58,320 93.2 39.3 47.0 29.0 2,289 607 100 39.6 30.9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baltimore 99,859 89.2 31.0 35.8 22.9 2,054 1,281 86 47.9 28.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buffalo 45,721 71.5 38.7 45.0 56.7 1,271 327 72 47.3 34.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cleveland 75,684 80.7 38.0 45.6 40.6 1,322 NA 99 30.0 32.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Detroit 162,194 96.3 34.8 35.2 31.9 2,072 200 78 57.0 28.8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fresno 79,007 79.8 36.8 44.6 40.5 853 423 86 55.8 28.3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Los Angeles 721,346 90.1 30.7 38.5 36.6 1,349 304 61 46.4 27.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Miami \7\ 368,265 88.7 38.5 52.4 34.6 1,906 NA 174 52.1 26.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Milwaukee 97,985 81.3 32.0 43.7 33.2 956 892 88 45.8 39.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New York 1,066,515 84.7 30.3 33.9 39.9 955 332 41 38.2 19.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philadelphia 201,190 83.3 31.6 37.2 50.4 1,524 1,008 64 41.9 25.8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington 68,925 95.5 31.7 37.6 25.6 1,596 NA 53 65.2 239
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average for High poverty cities Total 86.2 34.4 41.38 36.8 1,512 537.4 83.5 47.3 28.7
3,045,011
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For US 16.6 33.1 27.8 495 276 48 68 41.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratio of High Pov Cities to US 2.08 1.25 1.32 3.06 1.95 1.74 .695 59.9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Orfield, G., Losen, D., Wald, J., & Swanson, C., (2004). Losing Our Future: How Minority Youth are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis, Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project
at Harvard University. Statistics are for the public school district.
\2\ Kids Count--Census Data Online--2000 Census-Income and Poverty, http://aecf.org/cgi-bin.
\3\ Crime in the United States: 2003, Uniform Crime Reports, table 8, United States Department of Justice.
\4\ Snyder, H., Puzzanchera, C., Kang, W. (2005) ``Easy Access to FBI Arrest Statistics 1994-2002'' Online, Available: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ezaucr/. Arrest Statistics are for the
county in which the city is located.
\5\ Births per thousand females aged 15-19 from Kids Count, ``Teen Births in America's Largest Cities 1990 and 2000'' Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2000.
\6\ Extracted from the 2000 Census PUMS--5% file.
\7\ Enrollment and Graduation rates are for the Miami-Dade County district.
Chart 1:
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Source: Extracted from the 2000 Census PUMS 5% file. Working
includes those in the military.
According to the decennial census just over a quarter of youth 16
to 19 in these communities were working. That compares to 41%
nationally for the same age group. Young people in high poverty cities
do not have the same early access to the labor market. Transportation
poses a barrier to access to employment in the suburban hubs and in the
central city labor market youth are competing with immigrants and a
growing number of older workers who are taking the jobs traditionally
held by teenaged workers. Studies show that there is a direct benefit
to early work experience for teens. Work experience in the junior/
senior year adds to wages in the later teen years and to increased
annual earnings through age 26 especially for those not attending four-
year colleges.\4\ Youngsters in high poverty communities are
disadvantaged by their lack of early work exposure during the critical
years when they should be building their labor market attachment, their
workplace skills, and a portfolio of experiences that would allow them
to progress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ``The Summer Job Market for U.S. Teens 2000-2003 and the
Projected Job Outlook for the Summer of 2004,'' power point
presentation by Andrew Sum, Ph.D. & Iswar Khatiwada, Center for Labor
Market Studies, Northeastern University, to the U.S. Conference of
Mayors, June 2004.
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Among these high poverty cities, there are districts that fail to
graduate 60 to 70 percent of their students. These students without
access to quality ``second chance'' options are destined to remain
without academic credentials. Census statistics for various age
categories showed that those without a high school diploma were
intermittently employed throughout their early and late twenties. The
employment rate for dropouts in their early twenties was only 44%
compared to 60.9% for those with a high school diploma. The attachment
to the labor market for dropouts in their early twenties was tenuous
with only 50 percent having worked more than 3 months during the entire
year of 1999.\5\ For those in their late twenties without a high school
diploma, the percent working remained below 50%.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ All references in this document to census statistics not
otherwise cited are from extracts from the 2000 PUMS 5% file from the
Decennial Census, U.S. Bureau of the Census.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The chart also highlights the disparity in employment between White
and minority youth. In the chart above minority refers to Black and
Hispanic youth. In general the percentage of minority youth working at
the time of census in these communities was approximately 78% of that
for White youth. The disparity gap narrows for youth with bachelor's
degrees. However, only 14% of minority youth in these cities had
graduated from a 4 year college compared to 49% of White youth. It is
fairly clear that if the employment gap among the races is to be closed
significant effort and resources must be directed at greatly improving
the participation in post-secondary education and career training for
minority youth of color.
The question, ``what's a youngster to do?'' is more than a
rhetorical question. In communities with large minority populations,
where fewer than 50% of the youth graduate, where only 42% of minority
20 to 24 year old dropouts find employment, and where resources for
safety net and second chance programs have been dramatically reduced,
how will they survive economically, form families, and participate
constructively in civic life. The simple answer is that too many will
be unsuccessful. Unless the education and labor market status of these
youth dramatically improve, they will spend their adult years on the
fringes of the labor market marginalized in their ability to adequately
provide for their economic wellbeing or that of their families. More
young people will find avenues for economic survival through illicit
activity, thus reinforcing the pipeline to prison and the accompanying
stigma that will exacerbate their labor market situation upon re-entry.
In 2004, CLASP surveyed nearly 200 young people from 15 high
poverty cities who had dropped out of school and who were eventually
re-connected to supportive alternative programs. They were asked, among
other things, what they did with their time after dropping out of
school and before engaging in the alternative program. Most youth were
idle, unemployed, simply hanging out. Twenty eight percent (28%) were
engaged in criminal or gang activity. Only 24% reported working most of
the time. Fortunately, these young people found their way to
comprehensive alternative programs. They responded that what they found
most valuable was the caring adult support and guidance and the ability
to reconnect to education. Once reconnected, 47% responded that they
had post-secondary ambitions most with very specific majors in mind.
Many of the youth who fall by the wayside have hopes and aspirations
and their paths can be positively redirected with the appropriate
guidance and support.\6\ However, sustaining the funding streams to
support the transformations of youth delivery systems in economically
distressed communities has proven challenging for those communities
engaging in such transformation efforts. Department of Labor investment
in youth programming declined from $15 billion (in current dollars) in
1979 to just over $2.6 billion today.\7\ The most recent federal Youth
Opportunity Grant funding to high poverty urban and rural communities
is being discontinued.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ CLASP conducted a survey of 196 dropouts enrolled in the Youth
Opportunity Program in 13 cities. The report is forthcoming in the
summer 2000.
\7\ Estimate provided by David Brown, National Youth Employment
Coalition.
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So, what's a Nation to do? For almost 2 decades, the first chance
education systems in these communities have been neglected and the
second chance programs have been greatly impacted by the continual
retrenchment in funding. Relying solely on the slow pace of systemic
education reform will almost certainly guarantee that a decade hence we
will be facing greater challenges of social isolation, disparate labor
market outcomes and we will be posing the same questions. To make a
difference for youth in these communities several things must happen:
1. Systemic education reform and aggressive youth recovery efforts
must occur in tandem. These efforts must draw from the strength and
resources of the broader community to provide rich alternative learning
environments, advocacy and mentoring support, and horizon extending
exposure to careers and experiences that will heighten aspirations.
Many communities have discovered that the State and local education
dollar can be deployed to re-engage dropouts and struggling students in
smaller, more supportive community-based learning environments.
Communities must engage with their local districts to spark innovation
in developing multiple high quality options that will keep struggling
students engaged and provide ``on ramps'' for those who have dropped
out.
2. All youth serving systems should be mandated to collaborate on
the solution set and put in place accountability systems and supports
such that no youth falls through the cracks. The public must demand
better accountability for outcomes from youth serving systems. In
communities with high levels of youth distress the education,
workforce, child welfare, juvenile justice, and mental health systems
should be required to collaborate on a transition support system that
tracks and supports the movement of youth through the various systems
and prepares them for post-secondary success. Youth aging out of foster
care and youth re-entering from incarceration should have transition
plans that connect them with the services from all relevant systems.
Youth councils, such as those currently mandated in the Workforce
Investment Act, should serve to keep the focus on the problem and
solutions and to engage stakeholders in the process.
3. Federal and State resources must flow in support of such scaled
efforts creating a policy, legislative, and regulatory environment that
affirms a commitment to not leave these youth behind and provides the
incentives and resources, at scale, to stand behind the commitment.
Efforts like the Youth Opportunity Grant which provided substantial
funding to high poverty communities to build capacity and engage
thousands of in-school and out-of-school youth in sustained activity,
should be extended not ended.
4. The realities of the job market, the workplace and the 21st
century skill set needed to be competitive must factor heavily in the
redesign of high schools and alternative programming. Business must
play a prominent role in this redesign and in opening up the workplace
to provide rich career exposure. Jobs today and in the near future are
more knowledge and technology based. Success in the workplace will
require the ability to analyze, quickly adapt, continually upgrade, and
develop transferable skills. A dramatic shift in the secondary/post-
secondary education paradigm will be required to shift from 50%
dropping out to 100% graduating with these skills. Actively engaging
business, secondary, post-secondary, and alternative education leaders
in the school reform process can provide the impetus and support for
such change.
5. Work experience, internships, and community service/service
learning opportunities must be greatly expanded in these communities to
provide for these youth the same level of exposure to work environments
and civic opportunities as experienced by youth in more advantaged
jurisdictions. Up until the passage of the Workforce Investment Act in
1998, which eliminated the summer youth program, thousands of 14 and 15
year old youth received their first exposure to work and community
service through this federal funding. Over the years the summer jobs
program provided communities with a vehicle for imparting work skills,
college and career exposure, leadership skills, and work ethic in the
early teen years. With the elimination of the summer jobs program and
the constricting opportunities in the job market, young people are not
developing the skills and work ethic that will be essential for labor
market success in later years.
6. A national youth policy must be advanced that has among its
principles the reconnection of the approximately 5 million youth \8\
who are out of school and out of work and out of the labor market and
societal mainstream. There is no overarching national youth policy that
embraces all youth including those who have been ``disconnected''. Nor
is there policy that frames our values, beliefs, promises and actions
to be taken on behalf of all youth. National attention on this issue
tends to focus on specific pieces of legislation or special target
groups--gang prevention, foster care, young offenders. While this
attention is much needed, these problems are vestiges of continued
neglect of the larger disconnected youth problem. A more comprehensive
national youth policy is needed to move the country from silo-ed
fragmented interventions to more systemic, integrated solutions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Sum, A., Khatiwada, I., Pond, N., & Trub'skyy, M., with Fogg,
N., Palma, S. (2003, January). Left Behind in the Labor Market: Labor
Market Problems of the Nation's Out-of-School, Young Adult Populations.
Boston, MA: Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University,
p. 7.
What's a community to do? What is happening to young people in high
poverty communities, many of which are also predominantly minority
communities, should be unacceptable to all segments of the community.
When viewed simply as a failure of public schools, it is easy for one
to point the finger and disengage from the solution. However, when
viewed as a failure of the collective community to provide for the
future for its youth it should serve as a call to action. Those working
in the youth field are well aware of the amazing transformations that
take place when young people are reconnected to supportive alternative
environments. There is a growing body of evidence about effective
practice and what works to restore the education and labor market
pathways. Caring adult support, integrated learning environments, high
quality work experience and civic engagement, in combination, have been
demonstrated effective in restoring the pathways to success for
youth.\9\ The technology, and experience exist, but the delivery
infrastructure is fragmented and fragile after years of funding
decline.
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\9\ James, Donna Walker (ed) (1997). Some Things DO Make a
Difference for Youth: A Compendium of Evaluations of Youth Programs and
Practices. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
High school reform and the growing pressure for accountability
should serve as the impetus to community activism around these
unacceptable educational and labor market outcomes in high poverty
communities. The growing exposure of the educational and labor market
disparities for youth of color should also sound the alarm. The
community has an important role to play in creating the public will to
elevate the much neglected plight of youth in poverty communities for
priority attention. Community leaders and parents will need to be
informed and vigilant as the high school reform efforts unfold. Reform
efforts that cater to the letter of the law, instead of the intent and
spirit of leaving no youth behind, may in fact exacerbate the dropout
problem. Attempts to comply with high standards, high stakes testing,
and making average yearly progress could easily lead to the less abled
and more difficult youth being pushed out or tracked to less desirable
alternatives. The challenge is to deliver all youth to graduation with
a skill set that allows them to compete on equal footing for the
opportunities in the labor market. Communities, if they are to thrive,
can not continue to allow the loss of young talent, potential, and
energy.
What is needed is a vision for youth that is anchored in the belief
that all youth should have equitable access to the promise and
prosperity that America has to offer. This belief should guide our
priorities, our policies and our actions as individuals in a caring
community and as a Nation. It should resonate across all levels of
government and at the grass roots of community service delivery. There
must be a commitment to actualize that vision by making the investments
at the scale needed until the education and labor market disparities
for poor and minority youth dissipate. It is not just about funding. It
is about rethinking systems, policies, relationships, and collective
responsibility. Leadership on this issue begins with the
acknowledgement that the situation that exists for youth in high
poverty communities is unacceptable and that solutions must be bold,
systemic, and collaborative. Every sector of the community and every
youth serving system should be coalesced to be part of the solution. A
solution that is two decades overdue!
Statement of Greater Miami Service Corps
As the Executive Director of the Greater Miami Service Corps
(GMSC), I am pleased to submit testimony and success stories for
consideration by the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income
Security and Family Support as you consider best practices for engaging
disconnected and disadvantaged youth and young people.
Program Background
Established in 1989, Greater Miami Service Corps is a non-profit
youth service organization, based in Miami-Dade County that provides
out-of-school young people with the resources and services necessary to
transition to independence and self-sufficiency. Program emphasis is
placed on preparing young people to enter the workforce through
education, paid work experience, internships, job placement and post-
program follow-up and support services to ensure placement retention. A
profile of our population includes youth who are either unemployed or
underemployed; high school dropouts; basic skills deficient; single
parents; non-custodial parents; youth with prior criminal histories and
youth aged out of foster care.
GMSC, is one of 115 Service and Conservation Corps currently
operating in 41 states and the District of Columbia. Corps annually
enroll more than 23,000 young men and women who contribute 13 million
hours of service every year. The Corps Network and its member Corps
have a long and successful history in addressing the needs of
disconnected and disadvantaged youth between the ages of 16 and 25.
GMSC was one of eleven programs created through a national
demonstration project called the Urban Corps Expansion Project (UCEP),
a joint project between The Corps Network (formerly National
Association of Service and Conservation Corps) and Public/Private
Ventures. The UCEP project was sought to address several unmet
community needs, specifically: the need for increased community service
and volunteerism; the need for involvement of young adults in
addressing the physical and social conditions of their community; the
need for structured, meaningful work experiences for young adults; and
the need for ``comprehensive educational'' opportunities for
disadvantaged youth.
Service Strategy
The Greater Miami Service Corps and The Corps Network member
programs use the ``Corps Works'' model which incorporates service as a
strategy to engaging youth. This service model was research validated
by Abt, Associates and Brandeis University in 1997. The model
incorporates subsidized community based work experience, which
simulates a real-world work environment. Specifically, in order to
prepare for future work and success in family and community life, youth
enter a 6-12 month, comprehensive work-based learning program. Youth
spend the bulk of each week, Monday through Thursday working in crews
on service projects under the guidance of trained adult supervisors.
Service projects provide numerous work-based learning opportunities
rooted in reading and language comprehension, mathematics and critical
thinking. These activities not only provide valuable work experience
but also enhance literacy levels among youth. Projects also provide
opportunities for teamwork, communication as well as good safety
practices. Projects may be production based and as such carry deadline-
driven services creating an environment similar to what youth will
experience in other employment settings. The skills attained by youth
are varied by region but may include building and lawn maintenance,
child development, construction, clerical/office support and experience
in the health care industry. These projects save taxpayers money and
provide meaningful work for young people who will graduate our program
with marketable skills.
To address employment barriers directly (in addition to the crew-
based work experience), youth devote time (at least six hours per week
or more) to individualized education in pursuit of a high school
diploma, GED or remediation for those who have diplomas. Whenever
possible, youth are enrolled in community college classes to build the
habits and expectations of post-secondary education.
In addition to providing help with academics and work experience,
youth have numerous opportunities to demonstrate leadership. Leadership
opportunities offered include attendance at Board meetings, community
presentations, team captain, Corps Senate, leadership development and
business training.
In return for their efforts, Corpsmembers receive a living
allowance, classroom training to improve basic competencies, a chance
to earn a GED or high school diploma, experiential and environmental
service-learning-based education, generic and technical skills
training, a wide range of support services, and, in many cases, an
AmeriCorps post-service educational award of up to $4,725.
This best practice model informs the community that the Greater
Miami Service Corps develops young people to succeed. More than 70% of
Corpsmembers who complete the rigorous program are placed in jobs. An
additional group of Corpsmembers, return to school or go on to college
and an additional group join the military.
Funding Picture
The services provided by GMSC remain as critical today as they did
in 1989. Continuing articles published by the Miami-Herald and the Sun-
Sentinel on youth violence, low graduation rates, increased poverty and
the continuing dilemma of babies having babies demonstrate the need for
increased funding of youth programs that target disadvantaged youth.
However, funding for services locally remains unstable. Continued
decreases in state Workforce Investment Act funding as well as the
impact to revenue generated through property taxes to the County and
local municipalities creates a tremendous impact to the number of youth
that can receive services.
Since 2002, we have seen a decline in the number of youth our
program serves annually, from 425 to approximately 200. At the same
time, the number of youth eligible for services continues to increase.
A June 13th article in the Miami Herald indicates that ``fewer than 50%
of students in Miami-Dade earned a high school diploma.'' Overall,
Florida's 60.5% graduation rate is 45th in the country, out of 50
states and the District of Columbia. Without the resources for programs
like the Greater Miami Service Corps, many of these young people will
face a dismal future of low wages due to low education and skill
levels.
In order to ensure that our youth and young people receive basic
services, many programs have formed collaborations to address youth
barriers to employment such as transportation, childcare, housing,
tutoring, etc. But so much more is needed. Attached are success stories
of local youth who were formerly considered ``disadvantaged and
disconnected.'' In order to engage the increased number of youth that
are unable to access services due to limited funding, federal and state
funds must be increased to make it possible for youth to participate in
drop-out reconnection programs. Funding sources to consider include
Youth Opportunity Grants, Public Land Corps and Department of Labor
Offender Re-entry and Youthbuild funding. It is important that
foundations are part of the conversation for funding support in to
developing a pathway to youth for industry specific jobs.
Received via email January 11, 2007
Ms Dorsett:
First of all I wanted to let you know how nice was to see you last
Tuesday; it's been a while since I graduate from the GMSC and all the
memories I have from you guys are nothing but good ones.
Thanks to all your staff and your attention to detail has changed
many lives in the community; I'm the living example that if you believe
in yourself and take the opportunities that you offer you will be able
to success in life.
While I was in the program I had the opportunity to work with Miami
Dade housing agency and six months later I was a full time employee for
the county, I've could stop right there but then I thought that if I
got that far I could've go even further and I did.
I decided to join the Navy so I can have a back up to complete my
education. It worked.
It's not easy to be away from family and friends but at the same
time I've become a better person, a stronger leader, a warrior. I've
been in more than 15 countries in less than two years!!!
Thank you for all the opportunities that you gave me; I have no
words to explain how much I appreciate all your help, I couldn't get
this far If I wouldn't go to GMSC.
God bless you for giving people a new hope and a new way to see the
real world, it is never to late to study some of us wasted time but
thanks to programs like the one you offer helps communities to put
young people in the right track for their future.
Once again thank you for show me that there's a future if you
really fight for your goals, now I'm able not just to support myself
but my family as well; I'm even in the process to buy a house.
GOD BLESS YOU AND ALL THE STAFF!!!
Very respectfully
Petty Officer Hernandez, U.S NAVY
PS3 HERNANDEZ, EMILIO
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
USS LEYTE GULF (CG-55)
FPO AE 09570-1175
__________
Received via email 3/20/2007
I use to be in the Greater Miami Service Corp, a long time ago. I
am glad to see that it is still around. The corps helped me get my High
School Diploma from Lindsay Technical school. I am 32 years old now, so
a lot has happen since, but if it was not for the corps setting my
sails right, I would have not been on my way.
After I left the corps I moved into my own apt and got a permanent
job with the Dade County providing subsidized housing for low income
families. I had great aspirations, I wanted greater things in life so I
left that job and joined the U.S.A.F. in September of 1996. Since then
I have traveled to Spain, Ireland, Oman, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guam,
Hawaii, 23 of the 48 contiguous states, and just recently Japan. I have
driven a 800 horsepower car down a drag strip, eaten culturally unique
cuisine from every country I visited, met more celebrities then I can
remember and own a driveway full of cars that makes my dad jealous. Now
I am a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force and my job is to monitor my
Squadron of 100 people ensuring persons, equipment and aircraft move on
time off the airfield. I am writing this letter to you so maybe you can
read it to those young people maybe it can inspire them to stick with
the program just a little bit longer.
Thank you
SSgt Juan D. Hernandez
Kadena Air Base Japan, U.S.A.F.
__________
GREATER MIAMI SERVICE CORPS
Elmer Garcia is the third member of his family to attend and
graduate from GMSC. After relocating from Guatemala, he was uncertain
of what he should do. When he first arrived, his Mom told him about the
Greater Miami Service Corps. However, he decided to work for an
oriental trading company. After three years without opportunities for
advancement, he decided to try the Corps. While enrolled, he earned his
general education diploma, increased his English literacy and obtained
full-time employment through an internship placement with Energy
Programs Division of Miami-Dade County Community Action Agency. He
states, ``As a result of the program, I am now enrolled in Miami-Dade
College to pursue an Associates Degree in Business Administration. The
Corps helped put me on the path to achieve my goals.''
SUCCESS STORIES
Linda Eugene came to the Greater Miami Service Corps six months
after relocating from Haiti. She states, ``My primary reason for
joining was to benefit from the scholarships.'' After completing her
twelve month tenure, she continued in school full-time and worked on a
part-time basis. In 1999, she earned her Associate in Arts; in 2002 she
attained her Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration. She did not
stop there . . . in 2004 she earned a Masters in Business
Administration with a concentration in Accounting. She now works full-
time with the Tax Collectors Office and teaches English as a Second
Language (ESOL) on a part-time basis.
When Gladis Chacon's grandfather died, her world changed. She and
her siblings found themselves on the verge of homelessness. Due to the
age of her siblings, they were placed in foster care. Since she was
twenty and too old for foster care, Gladis moved into a shelter. That's
when a counselor referred her to the Greater Miami Service Corps. She
states, ``It was my first real job situation and I could not believe
that I was accepted, it was like oh my God they want me?'' After twelve
months Gladis graduated. She is now gainfully employed with the Miami-
Dade County Community Action Agency; she has an apartment and is now
working toward obtaining her general education diploma. She states,
``The most important thing I learned is that it's important to be
strong and never give up.''
Willie Scott, a young father of three, wanted to make a difference
in his life and that of his children. A family friend referred him to
the Greater Miami Service Corps. After joining the Corps, Willie
quickly demonstrated his leadership ability through his designation as
Team Captain. In his role as Team Captain, he was able to learn
managerial and administrative skills. Upon program completion, Willie
obtained full-time employment with South Miami Hospital, a Baptist
Health South Florida affiliate. Willie states, ``Greater Miami Service
Corps. . . .''
Born in Port au Prince Haiti, Sophonie Slaughter came to the United
States with her mother at a young age. Her Mom worked hard to make a
life for the two of them; however, shortly after arriving in the United
States; ``Sophie'' as she is affectionately known, found out her Mom
was gravely ill. When she was in the fourth grade, her Mom passed away
and she was placed in foster care.
Over the years, she would move from foster home to foster home;
until she was finally adopted while in the seventh grade. Even at a
young age, Sophie never allowed her personal situation to stop her from
pursuing her dreams. She enjoyed helping people and always dreamed of
one day becoming a nurse.
When she turned 18, she decided to move into her own apartment.
During that period she continued working on her education and received
her High School Diploma from Miami Jackson Senior High School. She also
became the mother of two children.
One day, Sophie observed some young people in the community in
orange and khaki uniforms. She walked up to one of them and queried
about the program they were working with. They shared with her the
opportunities at the Community Action Agency/Greater Miami Service
Corps. She was excited about what she heard and spoke with her case
manager at the Children's Home Society. Her case manager provided her a
referral and she enrolled in the Community Action Agency/Greater Miami
Service Corps (CAA/GMSC).
While enrolled in the program, she completed her education at
Nursing Unlimited; receiving certificates as a Home Health Aide and
Nursing Assistant. She also received numerous certificates for
leadership, attendance and ethics from CAA/GMSC. As a result of her
desire to become a nurse, she was placed on internship at Baptist
Health South Florida-South Miami Hospital where she received CPR and
Basic Life Support training and work experience in patient care
transportation. Sophie recently commenced the employment process with
the Hospital. Sophie states, ``Without the help from the Corps and the
Hospital, I would not be able to attain my dreams.''
Sophie's story is a testament to many young people who are just
looking for an opportunity to improve their lives.
Statement of the Honorable Ruben Hinojosa,
a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas
Chairman McDermott, Ranking Member Weller, and Colleagues:
I appreciate the opportunity to submit a statement into the record
of your hearing on disconnected and disadvantaged youth. I congratulate
the Subcommittee for shining a light on the challenges facing our
nation's disconnected and disadvantaged youth. In my position as
Chairman of the Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and
Competitiveness Subcommittee of the Education and Labor Committee, the
segment of our nation's youth and young adult population that is
disconnected from school and work is also of great concern to me.
I am pleased to focus my statement today on youth experiencing
homelessness. I congratulate the Chairman for including this population
of young people within the scope of your hearing, as they are often
overlooked in the national conversation taking place about
``disconnected youth.'' In my opinion, there is no more obvious
indicator of disconnection than the lack of a safe place to live.
Our nation's homeless youth are exposed to some of the harshest
elements imaginable. They are exposed to the harsh elements of hot and
cold weather. They are exposed to the harsh elements of crime, abuse,
and exploitation on the street. They are vulnerable to illness and
physical trauma. They are deprived of the protective and nurturing
elements that come with a home and a strong, supportive family. They
are robbed of the supports necessary for productive adulthood.
The National Network for Youth has launched a nation campaign
called ``A Place to Call Home Campaign.'' This bold initiative is of
critical importance to our nation. It asserts that no young person
should have to suffer the fate of being ``thrown away'' by society--
cast out and cast aside without a place to call home. It calls upon all
sectors of society to assure permanency--lasting connections to people,
places to live and opportunities and supports--for our nation's
homeless youth.
Congress must do its part. That is why I have am planning to
introduce the Place to Call Home Act, which will ensure that federal
policy creates solutions rather than barriers for homeless youth.
I am working with the National Network for Youth to convert the
goals of the Campaign into policies that we can enact through federal
legislation. We need a comprehensive approach--one that identifies all
of our agencies and congressional committees that can help mend the
social safety net that is torn for homeless youth. Our bill will
improve programs and remove barriers to services for homeless and other
disconnected youth in permanent housing, in healthcare, in secondary
education, higher education, job training, juvenile justice, and child
welfare. It will be called the Place to Call Home Act. I plan to
introduce it in July, in time for the commemoration of the 20th
Anniversary of the enactment of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless
Assistance Act, Congress's first comprehensive responsive to mass
homelessness in our nation.
Among the bill's provisions of interest to the Ways and Means
Committee, the Place to Call Home Act will:
Expand eligibility for federal foster care and
adoption assistance to youth through age 20.
Expand eligibility for the Chafee Foster Care
Independence Program, including room and board and education
and training vouchers, to youth under the age of 25.
Increase the mandatory spending levels of the
Promoting Safe and Stable Families program to $505 million, and
the Chafee program to $200 million.
Eliminate the income eligibility requirement for
federal foster care and adoption assistance.
Authorize maintenance payments for kinship
guardianship assistance to foster care children and youth.
Prohibit states from enacting policies or practices
to place a family within the child welfare system on the sole
or primary basis that the family is experiencing homelessness.
Require states, as a condition of receiving foster
care maintenance payments, to have policies and procedures
designed to reduce children and youth in their custody from
running from their placement.
Require states, as a condition of receiving foster
care maintenance payments, to have policies and procedures
designed to ensure that children and youth in their custody are
discharged in such a manner that ensures the child or youth is
placed in stable and appropriate housing.
Add homeless youth as a target group for eligibility
for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.
Permit states to establish a ``transitional
compliance period'' in the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) program, whereby income-eligible minor parents
who at the time of application are having trouble meeting the
complex rules and eligibility conditions related to education
and living arrangements (such as school dropouts and homeless
youth) of the TANF program are nevertheless allowed to receive
assistance on the condition that they comply with the minor
parent rules within an established period after enrollment.
Ensure that states provide alternative living
arrangements for minor parents seeking TANF assistance and
unable to live at home, and to consult with minor parents about
their preferred living arrangement.
End restrictions on states' ability to count
participation in vocational and post-secondary training as a
strategy for helping parents, including teen parents, attain
access to better jobs. Allow 24 months for such participation.
Commence the lifetime limit on TANF assistance for
teen parents completing their education and training programs
when they turn age 20, rather than when they turn age 19, in
order to allow these older youth to complete their education/
training without the lifetime limit clock ticking.
Establish sanctions protections procedures that help
teen parents understand, avoid, and/or end sanctions.
Require the identification of the extent and
strategies to address the unmet service and living arrangement
needs of teen parents in state TANF plans.
Require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
conduct studies of: teen parents receiving TANF assistance and
to identify state and community best practices related to teen
parent enrollment and tracking; teen parents not receiving TANF
assistance to identify reasons for non-participation and to
measure indicators of family well-being; the effects of
paternity establishment policies; and, the nature, extent, and
impact of sanctions imposed on parents who have not attained
age 20.
The very estimate that as many as three million of our nation's
youth and young adults do not have a home at some point in time each
year is an obvious indication that our social safety net has begun to
unravel. We need to mend that net and make it strong again. It will
take all of our efforts, including that of the Ways and Means
Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and others.
I urge this Subcommittee to help me move the Place to Call Home Act
forward. I hope that members of the Subcommittee will join as co-
sponsors of the legislation and advance its income security and family
support provisions as part of other legislation you may move through
Congress this session.
This hearing is a signal of the 110th Congress's commitment to
preventing and ending youth homelessness. I trust it will serve as an
opportunity to mobilize the nation to make sure that every young person
has a place to call home.
Statement of National Council For Adoption
The National Council For Adoption thanks you for the opportunity to
submit this written statement for your June 19, 2007 hearing's record,
on the subject of disconnected, disadvantaged and homeless youth. The
National Council For Adoption (NCFA) applauds the subcommittee's focus
on this vulnerable segment of American society. The chairman's and
subcommittee's leadership in addressing this sad issue creates an
excellent opportunity for both political parties to enact changes that
will positively impact millions of Americans.
We at NCFA are aware of the myriad of ways in which early childhood
difficulties and a poor environment work to undermine the personal
development of hundreds of thousands of children, thus placing them at
risk of growing into disconnected and disadvantaged youth. We also know
of the role that funding restrictions under Title IV-E of the Social
Security Act play in keeping thousands of children in foster care
environments, cut off from those caretakers and role models who could
provide them with the emotional and personal connections all children
and youths need to become well-adjusted, contributing members of
society.
In 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available, a
record 24,407 youths aged out of this nation's foster care system,
never having experienced the loving, permanent family that is every
child's birthright.\1\ In 1998, that number was 17,310.\2\ This
increase is troubling. Not only is emancipation the least desirable
outcome for a child entering the child welfare system, as it
presupposes that the child will never be matched to a loving, permanent
family. It also correlates with increased risk of poverty,
homelessness, and incarceration among those exiting the system. Given
these correlations, a reversal of the current trend in the numbers
emancipated from foster care should be among the goals of any national
strategy to reduce the number of disconnected and disadvantaged youths.
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\1\ The AFCARS Report (#13): Preliminary Estimates for FY 2005,
Administration of Children and Families, Department of Health and Human
Services. December, 2006. Available online at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/
programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report13.htm
\2\ The AFCARS Report (#12): Final Estimates for FY 1998 through FY
2005, Administration of Children and Families, Department of Health and
Human Services. October, 2006. Available online at http://
www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report12.htm
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Effects of the Child Welfare System on Foster Children
Nearly all studies of children in foster care show that they
experience higher than average rates of behavioral, emotional,
academic, mental and physical difficulties. This pattern is observed
even when children in the child welfare system are compared to
demographically similar children who have remained outside the system.
For example, the first national overview of the well-being of children
in the child welfare system, which drew on data from the 1997 and 1999
National Surveys of America's Families, found that 27 percent of
children involved with the child welfare system ages 6 through 17 had
``high levels of behavioral and emotional problems.'' This compares to
7 percent of all children ages 6 through 17, and 13 percent of children
in ``high-risk parent care.'' This same overview found that 28 percent
of all children involved with the child welfare system had ``limiting
physical, learning, or mental health conditions,'' relative to 7
percent of all children and 14 percent of children in ``high-risk
parent care.'' \3\
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\3\ Kortenkamp, J. & Ehrle, J. The Well-Being of Children Involved
with the Child Welfare System, January 2002, The Urban Institute.
Available online at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310413_anf_b43.pdf
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There are two obvious, and by no means mutually exclusive,
explanations for this. One is that whatever incident of abuse or
neglect precipitates the child's entry into the foster care system
negatively affects the development of that child for years afterward.
The other is that the individual's stay in the child welfare system,
oftentimes moving from one foster home or foster care facility to
another with little opportunity to form lasting personal bonds, is
detrimental to his or her development. Both these factors are most
likely at work in the majority of cases.
A foster child who is ultimately reunited with his or her original
and rehabilitated family, or placed in a permanent, loving adoptive
family, can be said to have received a second chance at life--complete
with the opportunity to heal, which only a loving, stable family can
provide. This is not the case for those who age out, however. The
difficulties reported above, disproportionately common among all
children involved with child welfare services, persist among those who
are neither reunited with their original families nor adopted.
Socioeconomic Outcomes for Children Who Age Out of Foster Care
A three-state study of former foster youths, aged 19, who had been
emancipated from the system found significant deficits in education,
poorer economic situations, and rates of delinquent or violent behavior
compared to a nationally representative sample of youths, aged 19,
studied as a part of the most recent National Longitudinal Study of
Adolescent Health (NLSAH).\4\
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\4\ Courtney, Mark E. et al, Midwest Evaluation of the Adult
Functioning of Former Foster Youth: Outcomes at Age 19, May 2005,
Chapin Hall. Available online at http://www.chapinhall.org/
article_abstract.aspx?ar=1355
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Thirty-seven percent of former foster youth had neither a high
school diploma nor a GED at the time of the study, compared to 9
percent of the NLSAH sample. Also, 24 percent of former foster youth
were enrolled at the time of their study in a two or four year college
program, compared to 56 percent of those surveyed in the NLSAH sample.
Ten percent of former foster youths who reported any income from
employment in the past year earned $10,000 or more, versus 21 percent
of those in the NLSAH sample who reported earning any income from
employment in the previous year. Furthermore, former foster youths were
significantly more likely than those in the NLSAH sample to report
having been unable to pay their rent or mortgage (12 percent vs. 6
percent) and utilities (12 percent vs. 7 percent), as well as to having
been evicted (4 percent versus .8 percent) in the previous year.
Perhaps most telling is the fact that 31 percent of former foster
youths reported not being in school and not having a job at the time of
the study, compared to 12 percent of those in the NLSAH sample.
In regard to delinquent and violent behavior, both males and
females in the former foster youth sample were significantly more
likely to report having pulled a knife or gun on someone (8 percent of
males, 4 percent of females) than those in the NLSAH sample (3 percent
of males, less than 1 percent of females). In addition, 28 percent of
former foster youths reported having been arrested, and 19 percent
reported having been incarcerated during the past year. This compares
dismally to the 0.6 percent of all Americans aged 18-19 who have ever
been incarcerated, as estimated by the U.S. Department of Justice.\5\
Finally, nearly 50 percent of young women formerly in foster care
reported having been pregnant at least once by age 19, compared to 20
percent of young women in the NLSAH sample.
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\5\ Bonczar, Thomas P., Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S.
Population: 1974-2001, August, 2003, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S.
Department of Justice. Available online at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/
bjs/pub/pdf/piusp01.pdf
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In short, young men and women who age out of the foster care system
work less, earn less, are undereducated, and are more likely to engage
in criminal and delinquent behavior, relative to their peers. These
facts speak to a continuing disconnection from society among youths who
age out of the foster care system.
Flexible Funding under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act: Necessary
to Successful Reform
Current federal funding legislation prevents the type of reform
needed to reduce the number of emancipated youths. Title IV-E federal
dollars are, by far, the largest source of child welfare services
funding. Sixty-one percent of this funding, however, is earmarked for
foster care maintenance services at the expense of other crucial child
welfare services that would allow these youths to find the permanency
the deserve. States therefore have a clear financial incentive to move
children into foster care, and no such incentive to move them out. As a
result, the system falls asleep on the foster care button, and children
in need of loving, permanent families are left in a government-financed
limbo instead.
With this in mind, National Council For Adoption would like to make
the following recommendations to Congress aimed at increasing the
flexibility of federal child welfare funds to better provide for
America's neglected and abused children.
Reassess the child welfare priorities and reallocate
resources so as to give more emphasis and funding to the
crucial, but neglected strategy of adoptive and foster parent
recruitment;
Extend the flexibility of the Promoting Safe & Stable
Families (Title IV-B, Subpart 2) funding to Title IV-E funding.
This would allow states to decide how best to use federal
dollars on community-based family support services, family
preservation services, time-limited family reunification
services, adoptive and foster parent recruitment and training,
post-placement services for adoptive and foster families, and
adoption promotion and support services, to meet the needs of
children in their care;
Allow states to project their annual expenditures for
foster care maintenance (Title IV-E) over a specified period of
time. The difference between the state's projected expenditures
and the state's actual expenditures are the savings that states
may consolidate with their Title IV-B funding to use for other
child welfare purposes such as those stated above. States would
continue to be required to match their federal savings at their
foster care matching rates to ensure that states continue their
share of spending for child welfare purposes; and
Reauthorize the federal child welfare waivers
allowing HHS to grant new waivers to 10 states to allow them to
use their Title IV-E dollars for other child welfare services
not covered by Title IV-E such as post-permanency services to
support and strengthen adoptive families. Successful Title IV-E
waiver demonstrations in North Carolina, Indiana, Oregon and
other states have proven that programs allowing states to use
previously restricted, foster care maintenance dollars to
underwrite other child welfare services can and do work.
There are currently 114,000 children in foster care whose parental
rights have been terminated. Under the current federal financing
system, a substantial portion of these children will simply age out of
foster care. However, a shift in child welfare funding away from foster
care maintenance and toward the placement of these children with
loving, permanent families would work to decrease the numbers aging out
of foster care and, by extension, the number of disconnected and
disadvantaged youths.
In conclusion, Chairman McDermott and other members of the
subcommittee, National Council For Adoption would like to thank you for
the opportunity to present this proposal to reduce the numbers of
disconnected and disadvantaged youths in the United States. We offer
our continued assistance in advancing this crucial mission.
Statement of National Human Services Assembly
We, members of the National Human Services Assembly and the
National Collaboration for Youth, commend this Subcommittee for the
work it does on behalf of our nation's most vulnerable, and for seeking
solutions by holding this hearing on disconnected youth.
The National Human Services Assembly, founded in 1923, is an
association of the nation's leading national non-profits in the fields
of community and youth development, and human services. Many of the
member organizations are national offices of direct human service
providers. Others conduct research or provide technical assistance.
The National Collaboration for Youth (NCY), a 33-year old affinity
group, is a coalition of the National Assembly member organizations
that have a significant interest in youth development. Members of NCY
include 50 national, non-profit, youth development organizations that
collectively serve more than 40 million young people; employ over
100,000 paid staff; utilize more than six million volunteers; and have
a physical presence in virtually every community in America. Its
mission is to provide a united voice as advocates for youth to improve
the conditions of young people in America, and to help young people
reach their full potential.
While many NCY members look to serve all young people, many of our
organizations have a focus on reaching the most at-risk youth. As
research demonstrates, and the graphic \1\ included in this testimony
indicates, children, youth, their families and caregivers often have
multiple needs and are eligible for a variety of services funded
through existing federal programs. It is often difficult, however, for
service providers, young people and their families to access
opportunities provided by different agencies.
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\1\ Dunkle, M. (2002). Understanding LA Systems That Affect
Families: A Look at How 40+ Programs Might Touch One Los Angeles
Family. The George Washington University and The LA County Children's
Planning Council.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
For more than 3 years, NCY members have been working on a piece of
legislation specifically designed to untangle this mass of services and
create a seamless web of support for at-risk young people. The Tom
Osborne Federal Youth Coordination Act (PL 109-365, Title VIII), passed
at the end of the 109th Congress, but has yet to receive the modest $1
million in funding necessary to begin the work of the Federal Youth
Development Council.
The original legislation, H.R. 856, passed the House in November
2005 by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 353 to 62, with 163
Republicans supporting it, and no Democrats opposing. In fact, we
remain grateful for the support of both the Chair and Ranking Member of
this subcommittee for their votes that day.
If implemented, the Federal Youth Development Council would play a
vital role in increasing the coordination, cooperation, and efficiency
among the twelve federal departments and myriad agencies that provide
services to disadvantaged youth. This new interagency Council, and its
focus on youth development, will result in considerable benefits for
young people by providing youth with a more accessible and
comprehensive array of services.
In addition to ensuring improved communication and coordination
among federal departments and agencies, the Council will
Assess the needs of youth and those who work with
youth; and the quantity and quality of federal programs
offering services, supports and opportunities to help meet
these needs.
Recommend objectives and quantifiable goals for
federal youth programs and recommend allocation of resources to
support the goals.
Identify overlap or duplication and recommend ways to
better facilitate coordination, improve efficiency and
effectiveness of such programs.
Identify target populations of youth and focus
additional resources or develop demonstration projects and
model programs to target those groups.
Conduct research and evaluation, identify and
replicate model programs and promising practices, provide
technical assistance relating to the needs of youth, and
coordinate the collection and dissemination of youth-services
related data and research.
Provide technical assistance to states to support
state-funded youth coordinating councils.
Additionally, the Council will report to Congress with an
assessment of the needs of youth and those who serve them, including
recommendations for better integration and coordination of federal,
state, and local policies affecting youth.
The composition of the Council is unique--it acknowledges that
government alone cannot provide all the solutions needed. Membership on
the Council includes non-governmental youth development organizations
and disadvantaged youth. The importance of this design, inclusive of
all representative stakeholders and expressly authorized in the Act,
cannot be overstated.
Organizations, such as ours, are essential partners in providing
programming to at-risk youth, and can provide valuable insight as to
how increased communication and coordination at the federal level will
have a direct impact toward improved services at the local and state
level. Furthermore, our nation's young people are more than capable of
articulating the efficacy of policies and programs. As recipients of
services provided by the federal government they are in the ideal
position to assist the Council as it moves forward, and by serving on
the council, youth members might also gain the propensity toward a
future career in public service.
While certainly the Federal Youth Development Council cannot
provide all the solutions that this Subcommittee is seeking, we do
believe that it is an integral and important part of a system to better
serve and engage our nation's future leaders.
Thank you for your time and attention. Any of the undersigned would
be happy to answer questions you might have, and assist your
Subcommittee as it works towards finding solutions.
__________
Afterschool Alliance, Jodi Grant, Executive Director
Alliance for Children and Families, Peter Goldberg, President and CEO
America's Promise Alliance, Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Judy Vredenburgh, President and
CEO
Camp Fire USA, Jill Pasewalk, President and CEO
Child Welfare League of America, Christine James-Brown, President and
CEO
Communities In Schools, Inc., Daniel J. Cardinali, President
First Focus, Bruce Lesley, President
Forum for Youth Investment, Karen J. Pittman, Executive Director
MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership, Gail Manza, Executive Director
National Collaboration for Youth, Irv Katz, President and CEO
National Network for Youth, Victoria Wagner, President and CEO
National Recreation and Park Association, John A. Thorner, Executive
Director
The Salvation Army, USA, Commissioner Israel L. Gaither
Search Institute, Peter Benson, President
United Neighborhood Centers of America, Ian Bautista, President
YMCA of the USA, Neil Nicoll, President and CEO
Youth Service America, Steven A. Culbertson, President and CEO
Statement of the National Network for Youth
Introduction
The National Network for Youth (NN4Y), founded in 1974, is a
national nonprofit membership organization that champions the needs of
runaway, homeless, and other disconnected youth through advocacy,
innovation and member services. NN4Y is committed to ensuring that
opportunities for development and permanency be made available to youth
who face greater odds due to abuse, neglect, exploitation,
homelessness, lack of resources, community prejudice, differing
abilities, barriers to learning, and other life challenges. NN4Y
provides its members and the general public education, networking,
training, materials and policy advocacy with federal, state, and local
lawmakers. NN4Y maintains offices in Seattle, Washington, and in
Washington, DC.
Today our membership includes more than 500 community-based, faith-
based, and public organizations that provide an array of services to
youth and families in the United States and territories as well as some
international locations. Many of our members receive funding through
the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. NN4Y's organization members
provide the full gamut of preventive, interventive, and developmental
supports to youth and families in high-risk situations, including
street-based crisis intervention, emergency shelter, transitional and
independent housing, permanent housing, individual and family
counseling, lifeskills, parenting, and health and wellness education,
physical and mental health treatment and care, supplemental
educational, workforce development, arts, and recreation services.
Collectively, NN4Y member organizations serve over 2.5 million youth
annually. In addition, youth, youth workers, and regional and state
networks of youth-serving organizations belong to NN4Y.
By any measure of disconnection, runaway and homeless youth
certainly fall within its scope. It is this group of young people about
which this statement is focused.
Runaway and Homeless Youth Basics
Runaway and homeless youth are the most vulnerable of our nation's
``disconnected'' youth. The National Network for Youth refers to these
two populations collectively as ``unaccompanied youth.'' Like other
disconnected youth, unaccompanied youth experience separation from one
or more of the key societal institutions of family, school, community,
and the workplace. Their disconnection is accentuated by their lack of
a permanent place to live, which is not only disruptive in and of
itself, but also indicative of the larger socioeconomic instability
they are experiencing.
Between one million and three million of our nation's youth
experience an unaccompanied situation annually, according to various
estimates derived from government studies and data sets. Some of these
estimates do not include young adults ages 18 and older within their
scope.
Unaccompanied youth become detached from parents, guardians and
other caring adults--legally, economically, and emotionally--due to a
combination of family and community stressors.
Family Stressors--Many of our nation's unaccompanied youth are
compelled to leave their home environments prematurely due to severe
family conflict, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse by an adult in
the home, parental neglect, parental substance abuse, or parental
mental illness. For other youth, the values and traditions with which
their families operate prescribe that the young person separate
economically from the family unit upon reaching the legal age of
majority or after graduation, in some cases regardless of whether the
youth is actually prepared for independent adulthood. Others are
expelled from the home due to parental inability to accept the sexual
orientation, parenting status, mental or addictive disability, or
normal adolescent behavior of their child. For still other young
people, their families are simply too poor to continue to bear the
financial burden of providing for the youth's basic needs. Youth in
families that are experiencing homelessness may be separated from the
family unit--and become homeless on their own--so that emergency
shelter or domestic violence services can be secured for the remaining
family members, or to squeeze most of the family into means of
habitation that are too small for all of its members.
Community Stressors--State custodial systems--including child
welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, addiction treatment, and
developmental disabilities--which have responsibility for ensuring the
safety and protection of children and youth who are not properly cared
for by parents and guardians--are failing in general to accept older
youth into their custody due to financial limitations and policy
disincentives. Many of the young people who do come in contact with
public custodial systems are not adequately prepared for independence
and residential stability during their period of custody nor provided
an aftercare arrangement to support them after the custodial
relationship has ended. Many of these young people have no home
environment to which to return. Youth with mental illness, addiction,
and other disabilities face discrimination when searching for an
independent living arrangement.
Many unaccompanied youth who are psychosocially prepared for
independent adulthood are not economically ready for self-sufficiency.
Inadequate educational preparation, lack of employment skills, short or
non-existent work histories, language barriers, and undocumented
immigration status all contribute to the relegation of many youth to
unemployment or to low-wage jobs--neither of which generate income
sufficient for acquiring affordable housing.
Policy barriers also stand in the way of permanency for
unaccompanied youth. In some jurisdictions, youth below the age of
majority are prohibited from entering into leases or other contracts on
their own behalf. ``One strike'' laws prohibit individuals with
criminal histories from residency in public and assisted housing and
prohibit juvenile ex-offenders from returning to their families. And,
federal, state, and local public and assisted housing programs rank
young people low, if at all, among their priority populations for
assistance.
Regardless of the causal factor, unaccompanied youth, when left to
fend for themselves without support, experience poor health,
educational, and workforce outcomes which imperil their prospects for
positive adulthood. This results in their long-term dependency on or
involvement in public health, social service, emergency assistance, and
corrections systems.
National Network for Youth Public Policy
The National Network for Youth was founded as the National Network
of Runaway and Youth Services to be the membership association of
community-based organizations that had emerged in the 1970s to focus on
the needs of youth in runaway and homeless situations. NN4Y was the
architect of the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) and
still considers that law today as our primary public policy
accomplishment. We remain vigilant over the RHYA and are the leading
national organization dedicated to ensuring the Act's continuation
(through the reauthorization process) and its annual federal
appropriation, $103 million in federal FY 2007. We urge Congress to
increase appropriations for RHYA programs to $140 million annual. We
also call on Congress to reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth
Act, which is set to expire in 2008.
Our public policy work reaches far beyond the RHYA, however. We
also devote attention to ensuring that runaway, homeless, and other
disconnected youth receive full and fair access to child welfare,
juvenile justice, physical health, mental health, education, workforce
investment, positive youth development, and housing opportunities and
supports.
Place to Call Home and Place to Call Home Act
In February 2007, the National Network for Youth announced a long-
term campaign to end youth homelessness at the NN4Y annual Symposium in
Washington, DC in February 2007. A Place to Call Home: The National
Network for Youth's Permanency Plan for Unaccompanied Youth seeks to
build the conditions, structures, and supports to ensure permanency for
unaccompanied youth, where permanency is understood to include a
lasting connection to loving families, caring adults, and supportive
peers; a safe place to live; and the youth's possession of skills and
resources necessary for a life of physical and mental wellness,
continuous asset-building, dignity, and joy.
The Place to Call Home Campaign will guide NN4Y's strategy and
actions for the future. The Campaign involves activities in four work
areas: public policy advancement and system change; practice
improvement and professional development; public awareness and
stakeholder education; and research and knowledge development.
The signature public policy component of the Place to Call Home
Campaign is the Place to Call Home Act, comprehensive legislation to
prevent, respond to, and end runaway and homeless situations among
youth. We are currently working with Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-
TX) to develop the Place to Call Home Act. We expect the bill to be
introduced in July.
The Place to Call Home Act addresses the causal factors of and
offers ultimate solutions to unaccompanied situations among youth. The
bill includes provisions in the homeless assistance, housing, child
welfare, juvenile justice, public health, education, workforce
investment, teen parenting, and immigration areas.
Income Security and Family Support Provisions within Place to Call Home
Act
The Place to Call Home Act includes many provisions that address
income security and family support issues within the jurisdiction of
the Ways and Means Committee. We urge the Subcommittee to act on the
recommendations below either by bringing up the Place to Call Home Act
for consideration once it is introduced, by bringing up the provisions
independently, or by attaching them to other income security and family
support legislative vehicles.
Child Welfare
State child welfare systems have the purpose of ensuring the safety
and protection of children and youth who are not properly cared for by
parents and guardians. We must strengthen these systems so that they
provide better access by, and supports for longer periods, to homeless
and other disconnected youth.
We urge Congress to expand eligibility for federal foster care and
adoption assistance to youth through age 20. Terminating such
assistance at age 18 is not in keeping with what we now know about
adolescent brain development, which is that the brain does not mature
to its adult capacity until the mid-20s. So essentially, by terminating
assistance at age 18, we are abandoning youth at a time when they are
still in great need of supervision and support.
Concurrent to an extension of eligibility for foster care to youth
through age 20, we recommend Congress to extend eligibility for the
Chafee Foster Care Independence Program to youth under age 25. Included
in this age extension should be eligibility for room and board and for
education and training vouchers. We recommend at least a $200 million
annual spending level ($60 million above current law) for the Chafee
program. We also recommend the addition of a requirement to evaluate
use of Chafee room and board services and how they improve housing
outcomes for youth.
We recommend that Congress authorize maintenance payments for
kinship guardianship assistance to foster care children. Guardianship
is a particularly attractive permanency option for older youth in care.
Uniform federal policy and funding to states is needed in this
important area.
We recommend that Congress require states, as a condition of
receiving foster care maintenance payments, to have established and
functioning policies and procedures designed to reduce the numbers of
children and youth in their custody from running from their placement.
Analysis of state data uncovers that 21 percent of foster youth run
from placement. This places a burden on both the child welfare and
youth homeless assistance systems and may lead to disciplinary action
against the youth.
We urge Congress to require states, as a condition of receiving
foster care maintenance payments, to have established and functioning
policies and procedures designed to ensure that children and youth in
their custody are discharged in such a manner that ensures the child or
youth is placed in stable and appropriate housing. We must block the
path from child welfare to homelessness for far too many of our
nation's youth exiting care.
We recommend that Congress increase from $305 million to $505
million the mandatory funding level for the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families Program. This is a vital account that states use to establish
prevention and early intervention supports for families at risk of
child removal from the home, and support to homeless families. Our
nation's children and youth deserve better than to have to scrape
annually for discretionary dollars for the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families Program, especially when Congress has already designated a
portion of PSSF funds as mandatory spending.
We recommend that Congress eliminate the income eligibility
requirement for access to foster care and adoption assistance. Income
should not be a determining factor in a young person and their family's
ability to access federal child welfare assistance. Child abuse and
neglect are by no means limited to low-income families.
We urge Congress to prohibit states from enacting policies or
practices to place a family within the child welfare system on the sole
or primary basis that the family is experiencing homelessness.
Lingering state practices in this regard continue to lead children and
youth being separated from their family when the core issue is the
family's inability to obtain a safe living arrangement for all its
members. There are more pro-social responses to the housing crisis
among families than to separate children from their caregivers.
Finally, we request Congress to authorize the Government
Accountability Office to conduct a study on state policies and
practices with regard to access of unaccompanied youth to child
protective services and to foster care and adoption assistance. We need
to understand better why when homeless youth service providers turn to
the child welfare system for assistance in caring for a homeless youth,
the door is too often closed.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families_Teen Parent Protections
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is an
essential source of income and supportive services for families in
poverty, including young families. Teen parents face special barriers
to accessing and utilizing the TANF program--barriers that must be
dismantled.
We urge Congress to permit states to establish a ``transitional
compliance period,'' whereby income-eligible minor parents who at the
time of application are having trouble meeting the complex rules and
eligibility conditions related to education and living arrangements
(such as school dropouts and homeless youth) of the TANF program are
nevertheless allowed to receive assistance on the condition that they
comply with the minor parent rules within an established period after
enrollment.
We recommend Congress to ensure that states consult with minor
parents about their preferred living arrangement. We urge Congress to
ensure the appropriate provision of alternative living arrangements for
minor parents unable to live at home. This should include identifying
transitional living youth projects for older homeless youth funded
through the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) as a type of
alternative living arrangement.
We recommend that Congress end restrictions on states' ability to
count participation in vocational and post-secondary training as a
strategy for helping parents, including teen parents, attain access to
better jobs. Twenty-four months should be allowed for such
participation.
While we oppose the lifetime ban on TANF assistance, given that it
is part of current law, we at least ask Congress to commence the
lifetime limit on TANF assistance for teen parents completing their
education and training programs when they turn age 20, rather than when
they turn age 19, in order to allow these older youth to complete their
education/training without the lifetime limit clock ticking.
We recommend that Congress establish procedures that help teen
parents understand, avoid, and/or end sanctions.
States should be required to identify the extent of and strategies
to address the unmet service and living arrangement needs of teen
parents in state TANF plans.
And the Secretary of Health and Human Services should be required
to conduct studies of: teen parents receiving TANF assistance and to
identify state and community best practices related to teen parent
enrollment and tracking; teen parents not receiving TANF assistance to
identify reasons for non-participation and to measure indicators of
family well-being; the effects of paternity establishment policies;
and, the nature, extent, and impact of sanctions imposed on parents who
have not attained age 20.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit
Congress should add homeless youth as a target group for
eligibility for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. Currently, youth
living in Enterprise Communities and Empowerment Zones are eligible for
the WOTC. This category needs to be expanded. ``Homeless youth'' for
purposes of WOTC should be defined as an individual not less than age
16 and not more than age 24 and otherwise having the same meaning as
``homeless child and youth'' under federal education law.
Conclusion
Thank you for considering our views and recommendations. We hope
the Committee on Ways and Means and the Subcommittee on Income Security
and Family Support will join us in our campaign to ensure a Place to
Call Home for all our nation's youth.
Statement of National YouthBuild Coalition
Introduction
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee for allowing
me to submit this statement for the record. Thank you for holding this
important hearing.
I belong to various organizations and task forces that have
developed and will submit broad sets of policy and funding
recommendations to address the range of issues affecting disconnected
youth. Therefore, knowing that you will receive such recommendations
from elsewhere, in this testimony submitted as chairperson of the
National YouthBuild Coalition, I will focus simply on the powerful
potential role of the federal YouthBuild program as part of the
solution to the crisis of disconnected youth.
We recommend that Congress seize the leadership role in taking
YouthBuild to full scale: Bring it to every community that is calling
for it, open the doors to all the young people who are knocking,
eliminate waiting lists of both youth and of community-based
organizations eager to implement YouthBuild in America's poorest
communities. Within five years YouthBuild could grow from 8,000 youth
per year in 226 communities to 50,000 youth in 850 communities,
producing beautiful housing and proud young leaders, eager to make a
difference, rebuilding their own lives and their own communities.
YouthBuild Description and History
YouthBuild is a national youth and community development program
that simultaneously addresses the key issues facing low-income
communities: housing, education, employment, crime prevention,
community service, and leadership development.
In YouthBuild programs, sponsored primarily by community-based non-
profit organizations, low-income disconnected young people ages 16-24
enroll full-time for 6 to 24 months. They work toward their GEDs or
high school diplomas while learning construction job skills by building
affordable housing for homeless and low-income people. A strong
emphasis is placed on leadership development, personal counseling,
positive values, community service, and personal responsibility. The
members belong to a positive mini-community in which students and
teachers are committed to each other's success. They take pride in the
housing they produce.
YouthBuild students go through a process of personal transformation
that has been documented by independent researchers to result in a
radical change in the students' attitudes and future aspirations,
coupled with acquisition of skills that enable them to move on to
careers and post-secondary education. We also see graduates getting
married, buying homes, and caring well for their children.
YouthBuild began in Chairman Rangel's East Harlem district in 1978.
It was replicated in New York City and across the country before being
authorized as a federal program in 1992 under the jurisdiction of the
US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Since 1994, when HUD
YouthBuild funds first reached communities, more than 68,000 YouthBuild
students have produced 16,000 units of low-income housing. Today, there
are 226 YouthBuild programs in 42 states, engaging approximately 8,000
young adults each year in America's poorest urban, rural and tribal
communities.
In September, 2006, at the recommendation of the Bush
Administration, YouthBuild was transferred by unanimous consent in
Congress to the jurisdiction of the US Department of Labor. The
National YouthBuild Coalition of nearly 1,000 organizations cooperated
with this move in the hope that it was the precursor to a major
expansion that would use YouthBuild's proven approach to reconnect more
of America's lost youth.
Need:
I don't need to belabor just how dire is the need to reconnect
America's under-educated and unemployed youth. A few statistics
released recently at a national summit on dropouts tell the grim story:
More than one million American high school students
leave high school every year without a diploma.
Nearly half of all African Americans, Hispanics and
Native Americans fail to graduate with their high school
classes.
1.7 million low income youth are both out of school
and out of work, likely to be the parents of the next
generation raised in poverty and despair.
Another 225,000 are in prison.
A major federal intervention is desperately needed. Every effective
program should be immediately taken to full scale; and every community
should be mobilized to address this problem in a cohesive fashion. The
problem is finite and can be solved. YouthBuild is ready with a track
record and the infrastructure to grow quickly as part of a national
mobilization.
YouthBuild Demographics and Outcomes
YouthBuild students are the very disconnected and disadvantaged
youth who are the focus of this hearing. They are detached from school
and work. 91 percent are high school dropouts; 72 percent are young
men; 48% are African American, 22% Latino, 22% White, 3% Native
American; 33% have been adjudicated, 10% in foster care; 30% have been
homeless. They are both urban and rural. Twenty-six percent are already
young parents themselves.
YouthBuild programs have demonstrated the principles and practices
that work to reconnect most youth and to create pathways to higher
education, careers, and citizenship. What we have learned is that every
disconnected youth is yearning to become somebody that other people
will welcome and respect, and if given the right conditions they will
transform their own lives and play a constructive role in society.
The 226 existing YouthBuild programs, all based on the same
philosophy and model, have been highly successful. Although 91 percent
of the students were previously high school dropouts and all of them
are poor, nearly 70 percent complete the program, and 71 percent of
graduates go on to college or jobs earning an average of nearly $9 an
hour. The recidivism rate for graduates previously convicted of a
felony is less than 24 percent, compared to 67 percent nationwide.
Imagine the social and economic impact across the country of
simultaneously helping 70 percent of high school dropouts complete
their GED or diploma while drastically reducing the recidivism rate of
youthful offenders to just 24 percent!
Demand:
The challenge for the YouthBuild network is quite simply this: We
have only enough resources to serve a fraction of the young people who
seek a second chance, in this nation that believes in second chances.
Each year YouthBuild programs turn away 14,000 youth for lack of funds:
800 in North Philadelphia, 500 in Harlem, 400 in Newark, 800 in
Madison, and so on. Furthermore, over 1,000 community-based
organizations have applied to HUD since 1994 to bring this proven and
inspiring program to their neighborhoods. Over 600 traveled to DC for
DOL's first YouthBuild bidders' conference this month. DOL only has
funds for 100.
Recommendation:
Congress should establish a five-year plan in partnership with DOL
and YouthBuild USA, to expand the federal YouthBuild program to full
scale. This successful network could grow through a planned five year
growth process from 8,000 low-income, disadvantaged youth in 226
communities to 50,000 youth in 850 communities.
The federal YouthBuild program has developed a public/private
partnership that has coupled the long-term commitment, knowledge, and
leveraged resources of YouthBuild USA with the know-how and capacity of
several federal agencies. The federal government has built the
infrastructure with an investment of $650M; YouthBuild USA has brought
$114M into the mix; and local YouthBuild programs have raised over $1B
of matching funds. Together we have the knowledge, infrastructure,
commitment, capacity, and demand to do this within five years. It would
take a steady annual increase to an appropriation of $1B in the fifth
year, at an annual cost per full-time youth participant of $20,000.
This includes a $5,000 stipend for each youth to compensate for their
hard work and service producing affordable housing.
Part of this growth plan should include a federal incentive for
states to join in, by offering a 50% federal match for every
adjudicated young person funded by any state government to participate
in YouthBuild programs as a diversion or re-entry program. In
Wisconsin, California, and Newark state governments have already
noticed YouthBuild and begun to invest in it as a re-entry program.
States could save millions by lowering the recidivism rates through
YouthBuild.
How YouthBuild Works: The Formula to ``Flip the Script''
YouthBuild is not the only program that works. It is, however, the
only national program that reaches a highly disadvantaged population
with a comprehensive community-based program that puts equal emphasis
and commits equal time to education and job training, that offers job
training in the form of creating a profoundly valuable community
service, and that is committed to teaching leadership skills and values
through engaging the young people in helping to develop the policies
that affect them. There are precious few pipelines for low-income youth
to become good citizens, to take on active leadership roles in their
communities.
The formula to do what the young people call ``flip the script'' of
their lives, taking them from a negative direction to a positive
direction, includes all of the following elements:
a way for young adults to resume their education
toward a high school diploma and college
skills training toward decent-paying jobs
an immediate visible role contributing to the
community that earns respect from family and neighbors
stipends or wages to support themselves and their
children
personal counseling from admired, deeply-caring role
models who are committed to these young adults and who also
firmly challenge self-defeating attitudes from a basis of love
positive peer support with a clear value system
strong enough to compete with the streets
a mini-community that offers a sense of belonging and
a foundation young people can believe in--with everyone
committed to everyone else's success
a role in governance and the ability to participate
in important decisions about staff and policies in their own
programs
leadership development and civic education offering a
vision of the important role young adults can play in their
neighborhoods and society to change conditions that have harmed
them and the people they love--and the skills to do so
assistance in managing money and building assets such
as individual development accounts, scholarships, financial
literacy training, and budgeting
placements with colleges and employers
support after graduation with continued counseling
and the opportunity to belong to a supportive community.
This is the YouthBuild model. If caring, competent adults offer
those elements in an environment of profound respect for the
intelligence and value of the young people, you will see dramatic
changes. Young people will define new goals for their lives and will
gain the skills and confidence to take real steps toward achieving
their goals.
The Voice and Experience of Disconnected Youth, One Story Representing
Hundreds of Thousands:
Listen to what Mike Dean has to say:
When he was just 11 years old in Columbus, Ohio, Mike cut hair to
put food on the table for his four younger siblings--often just Ramen
noodles. Their mom was hooked on drugs and alcohol and was gone
frequently for a day or two at a time. Mike had to get his sisters and
brothers ready for school. He often was embarrassed at school because
roaches would crawl out of his clothes or notebooks. An average
student, he lettered in basketball, a sport that kept him in high
school.
At age 16, he fled his home life and spent the next few years
crashing at different friends' homes. He often skipped school for weeks
at a time. He wasn't a gangster or a bad kid--just one without
direction. At age 17, he got his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant. When
the basketball coach found out Mike was a runaway, he was cut from the
team. Behind academically, Mike dropped out of school completely and
hung out with the wrong crowd, drinking and getting high. He tried
working at McDonalds but saw how much his drug dealer friends were
earning so he joined their ranks. He was arrested and went to the
workhouse for a few weeks. But when he got out, he returned to his old
ways again.
Mike's girlfriend saw an ad for YouthBuild, and they both applied.
In YouthBuild, Mike suddenly found people who showed him genuine love,
a new experience for him. ``Eventually, YouthBuild became my family,
and I let a lot of my old friends go,'' he says. ``These people really
gave me a chance, despite all that had transpired. There were people
who actually showed they cared.''
Today, Mike is 30. He earned his GED through YouthBuild. He earned
more than $10 an hour at union construction jobs. Today, he is a
program manager/construction manager at YouthBuild, helping other young
people who were once like him. He is vice president of the national
YouthBuild alumni council. He's starting his own construction business.
He married his girlfriend, and they have three children with a
fourth on the way. He owns his own home. He is an ordained minister and
vice president of a nonprofit that mentors young men. He would like to
start his own nonprofit to help juveniles successfully return to their
neighborhoods after they have been in juvenile detention facilities. He
wants to create the nonprofit to honor the memory of his younger
brother who was shot to death after he left a juvenile detention
facility.
In your own states, your own communities, you have young men--and
women--who were just like Mike Dean. Adrift. Floundering. Heading
downhill fast. You can play a major role in determining whether they
turn their lives around.
In Closing:
Let me just say again: We know what works. We simply need the
resources to expand so we can engage tens of thousands more young
people in programs such as YouthBuild. All the programs with waiting
lists should be supported to open their doors to all the youth who are
knocking. They are leaving the public schools and lining up outside the
doors of programs that offer them a sense of belonging to a caring
community, skills for jobs and college, and clear pathways to a hope-
filled and meaningful future.
I am convinced that if we do this, we can solve one of America's
most pressing domestic policy challenges. In fact, if we build up a
head of steam so that young people all across the country see the doors
opening for their friends and former street buddies, I believe they
would all want to follow their friends, creating a great movement in
the right direction. We have seen this often: for example, after Trevor
Daniels joined Youth Action YouthBuild in East Harlem, and found a
pathway to college, the next year sixteen of his friends from his
housing project followed right behind him, and joined YouthBuild, with
new hope in their hearts.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to submit this statement
to this subcommittee.
Dorothy Stoneman
Chairperson of the National YouthBuild Coalition