The struggle to help youth aging out of foster care in New York

Youth aging out of foster care face immense challenges finding housing and reaching financial stability, and those challenges have only been exacerbated amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New York state began to allow counties to use funding set aside for agencies to increase youths’ placements with kin to fund housing support for foster youth aging out of care at 21 years old. Yet several counties have already committed that money for its intended purpose, The Imprint reports. 

Erie, Onondaga and Dutchess counties have reported already setting aside that funding, which is meant to help comply with the requirements of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act. The state had allocated a similar amount of funding to the Family First transition fund this spring as the previous year, which could then be used toward these efforts, but counties said they don’t know when those dollars will arrive. This has called into question how much support foster youth aging out of support in parts of the state will get. 

Child welfare advocates are now reiterating earlier calls to allow youth to stay in foster care beyond 21, as at least nine other states and New York City have already done. State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery sponsored legislation in June that would put in place a six-month moratorium on aging out of foster care and allow some youth to stay with their foster families and continue receiving benefits.