"Real Adulting"

VANCOUVER - Young people in foster care grow up fast. Overnight, in fact.

Come their 18th birthday, they're on their own. Foster care that put a roof over their heads, food on their tables and clothes on their backs stops as they "age out" of foster care and are suddenly responsible for finding a place to call home, a way to make a living and how to navigate and balance all the demands of being a "grown-up."

On average 20,000 kids age-out each year in the United States. For some it turns out well. Not so for many more. A Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (www.dshs.wa.gov/sites/default/files/rda/reports/research-7-106.pdf) study of 1,213 age-outs reported that 335 - 1 in every 4 - experienced homelessness within 12 months of leaving the system. "No way," said HUD Secretary Carson, "to start out in life for young people reaching adulthood."

At the core of HUD's efforts to prevent such homelessness is its Family Unification Program - or FUP - which is a partnership between local public housing authorities and child welfare agencies. Established in 1992, FUP provides HUD rental vouchers to income-eligible young people ages 18 to 24 who have or are about to "age-out" and at risk of homelessness or to families with children about to be placed in foster care because the family lacked housing.

Some 300 authorities across the country have FUP programs, including 19 in Idaho, Oregon and Washington serving almost 1,450 families. HUD's hoping to soon have many more.

In August, HUD Secretary Carson launched the Foster Youth to Independence - or FYI - program. "The foundation of a stable life is stable housing," he commented, "and this initiative will allow local housing, working child welfare agencies and homeless planners, to focus this housing assistance to those young people who need it most."

What FUP has done in 300 authorities FYI will do for authorities that aren't FUP designees, offering them - many serving small, rural communities - tenant-protection vouchers to prevent aging-out doesn't lead to homelessness. To be eligible, authorities must operate a Housing Choice Voucher program, partner with a local child welfare agency to accept its referrals and insure those referred are eligible for the Voucher program. It will "close the gaps," added Ruth White, National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, that "too many children fall into. . .on their way to adulthood."

Closing that gap also been a priority for the Vancouver, Washington Housing Authority that is a FUP designee providing vouchers to some 100 households. And now at 505 Omaha Way in the city's Skyline Crest neighborhood, it's going a big step farther.

Welcome to the newly opened $8.2 million Caples Terrace. Built by the Vancouver Housing Authority with funding from the Washington State Housing Finance Commission and the City of Vancouver's affordable housing tax levy and named for its first board chair, it dedicates 28 units of HUD public housing for young people from 18 to 24 who are aging-out or homeless.

Residents will participate in Self-Sufficiency for Youth skills building to help them prepare for adulthood, a collaboration between Bridgeview, Clark College, the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families, Janus Youth, YWCA, and Partners in Careers. Their housing stabilized, the young people "can focus on their healthy living, education, employment and housing."

It's a milestone for the Authority, reports The Columbian, (www.columbian.com/news/2019/aug/19/cantwell-pushes-affordable-housing-in-vancouver-visit) the first time it's built housing that "targets a specific population." How, Authority director Roy Johnson told Oregon Public Broadcasting, (www.opb.org/news/article/vancouver-washington-affordable-housing-caples-terrace/) "are they going to make it when they don't have a safety net," they had in foster care. "That's what we wanted to look at providing."

Caples Terrace residents agree. "I could cry I'm so excited," said Christine LaCalle, 20, who "spent most of her childhood bouncing between different foster homes." She and her infant daughter soon will move in. "It's all about my daughter now," she said. "I want her to be safe and in a good place and grow up in a way that I didn't." "To do," in other words, what a fellow resident called "some real adulting."

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