Every day across Florida, teenagers turning 18 are being kicked out of their foster homes - ready or not - to live on their own. Many have no practical life skills, no money, no plan for the future. A growing number are ending up on the streets.
That's not how it was supposed to be.
That's not how it should be.
The new "Road to Independence" Act, effective in July, may have been passed with the best of intentions, but it is having the worst of consequences. Before the law, most teens could stay in the foster-care system until age 23. Now, they must leave their foster homes at age 18. The law says the Department of Children and Families is supposed to "train" these youths in how to live independently and pay those who stay in school with passing grades a monthly stipend toward rent and living expenses. But what the law says and what DCF does are two different things.
Far too often, DCF fails to provide any, much less adequate, life-skills training. A Miami judge in June blasted DCF for its "inactions and malfeasance" that put a foster teen "at risk for homelessness tomorrow," and that criticism has only intensified.
What's more, the money is proving as illusory as the training. Even eligible teens are finding it difficult to jump through all the hoops DCF has erected for obtaining the monthly stipend. Many more are simply ineligible for it because of bad grades in school. The irony is that many foster teens lag in school precisely because they have been bounced from one home to another for most of their lives - only to be cast out altogether, with no home or money, due to those poor grades. While the law authorizes some emergency funds, that pot of money is harder to tap than even the monthly subsidies, advocates complain.
"The problem with the Road to Independence Act is that it provided only one road: the one right out of foster care," said Carolyn Salisbury, associate director of the University of Miami's Children and Youth Law Clinic. "There has to be a second road, such as extended foster care, for teens who need it, especially those with disabilities. The easy way out is for DCF to give these kids a check, though many don't receive even that much. But when you're sleeping on the streets, a check doesn't make a very comfortable pillow, and it certainly doesn't provide you any guidance on life."
Florida lawmakers have had several opportunities to correct the problems but have so far been disinclined. Still, Salisbury and others hold out hope that the Legislature will see the light and close the law's gaps during the regular session early next year. It should.
