Gaps in Foster Care Lead to Youth Homelessness

According to the U.S. Administration for Children and Families, by age 21, at least 26% of young people who aged out of foster care in the United States experienced a period or more of homelessness; a third lacked a high school diploma; and 25% had no health insurance. A quarter of these youth already had parented a child.

According to a recent study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, each year in the United States, approximately 23,000 youth age out of the foster care system when they turn 18 or 21, or when they finish high school, depending upon the state in which they live.

A study in Canada, conducted by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, found that nearly three-quarters of all children who became homeless before age 16 came from homes where child welfare services had intervened at some point. Transgender, gender nonbinary, and LGBTQ2S youth were more likely to report child welfare services involvement in the home than were their peers.

The COH study also found that young people aging out of foster care or group homes without support face serious impacts on the next stages of their lives. They experience higher rates of unemployment, a lack of educational engagement and achievement, involvement in the criminal justice system, and poverty. In other words, their great potential for success and happiness go untapped and remain dormant.

In Central America and Mexico, where Covenant House has served since 1981, child and adolescent safety nets are relatively thin or nonexistent, leaving children and youth who experience abuse, neglect, or violence in their homes and communities little recourse. Far too often, they or their parents come to the conviction that their best option is to seek protection and opportunity elsewhere, and they set out with or without a guardian on the risk-laden migrant trail.