First Place for Youth

First Place for Youth, an Oakland-based nonprofit that helps older foster teens and young adults transition into adulthood, has been awarded a $1 million grant from United Airlines to expand their services in the Los Angeles area.

Although today I am an attorney and a proud leader in an executive role at First Place for Youth, at 18 years old, I was struggling. I didn’t have a relationship with my parents for a time.

Whether to increase financial support for prenatal care and other needs of pregnant foster youth is in California Governor Jerry Brown’s hands, now that Assembly Bill (AB) 1838 has passed in both the Senate and Assembly.

Joseph Clark, a 25-year-old Oakland, California native, has always enjoyed figuring out how things work. “If I had any old radio system or any old computer, I’d try to break into them and try to reattach them,” Clark said.

By the time they are 21, more than 50% of female foster youth have a child. This is more than twice the pregnancy rate of their non-foster peers. Due to the 2010 extension of foster care to age 21, this high pregnancy rate has entered the policy spotlight.

Aging out of foster care can be a difficult process. With little community support, former foster kids are more at risk for homelessness, arrest and incarceration, and failure to graduate from college.

San Francisco’s endemic housing crisis is contributing to a startling exodus of older foster youth, leaving neighboring counties to shoulder the responsibility.