These are words going through the minds of 857 young people who will be cut off from state care, from the services of the Dept. of Children, Youth and Families, simply because they are 18 years of age, if the state budget passes in its present form. It doesn't matter if these young people have any family members; it doesn't matter whether they are trying to complete high school or college; it doesn't matter whether they need physical or psychiatric care. The mere fact that they are 18 will make them ineligible for help from the DCYF.
These adolescents have had many setbacks in their young lives such as physical, sexual and emotional abuse. These young people have been rejected and hurt by those who were supposed to love and care for them. These circumstances have caused them to come into the care of the state DCYF. These young people have been victimized, thus causing them to be emotionally and academically two to three years behind their peers. The are chronologically 18 years old; but in reality, because of their victimization, they are functioning at a 15- or 16-year-old level.
The proposed cut will terminate the safety net that these young people need by cutting off all services and making them victims all over again. I have worked with this population for 35 years as a counselor, mentor and as an administrator. It's ironic: 35 years ago, work with these young people began. There was only one group home in the state of Rhode Island. Family Court judges had no place to send youth who had to be taken out of their homes because their home life was so chaotic. As a last resort, Family Court judges asked the Brothers of Our Lady of Providence to take two young men into their community. It was a very unusual request, but the brothers agreed.
From that time, it became clear that these young people, victimized in their own homes, needed group homes and independent living programs. Thousands of youth during the past 35 years have stabilized their lives, graduated from high school and college, and became productive tax-paying citizens of Rhode Island, through the guidance of dedicated staff of numerous group homes and independent living programs.
Now, the state budget proposes that we take a backward step and place 857 youth presently in foster care and independent living programs out on their own. The progress attained in these many years will not only be stopped, but will be pushed back to the way it was 35 years ago with no place for these young people to go.
One of these youth recently said: "Believe it or not, but many of us in state care have no place to go. If this cut happens, where will we go? What happens when the shelters are full?" The state budget is proposing this cutback at a time when most states are giving more support to this population. Other states that have emancipated youth at age 18 (e.g. California, Iowa, Wisconsin) have a high proportion of former foster youth on public assistance, living in homeless shelters, unemployed, incarcerated and suffering from mental illness or substance abuse disorders. These states have or are in the process of extending care past 18; Rhode Island is going in the opposite direction.
Our former senator, the late John H. Chafee, was the author and chief proponent of the Foster Care Independence Act (FCIA), which passed in 1999 "to provide states with flexible funding that will enable programs to provide financial help, housing, counseling, employment, education and other appropriate supports and services to former foster care recipients between 18 and 21 years of age to complement their own efforts to achieve self-sufficiency." Senator Chafee saw the need and acted to help these youths.
The state of Rhode Island needs to do the same and continue to care for these young people. As soon as possible, we need to answer these questions, "What will happen to us? Where will we go? Where will we sleep and eat?"
(Our Lady of Providence Brother John McHale is head of Whitmarsh House in Providence.)
(This column originally appeared in The Providence Journal)
