Homelessness and Foster Care Study in Canada

“There is a link between being in foster care as a child and becoming homeless, having a mental illness and using drugs daily as an adult, a Simon Fraser University study has found.
The study by SFU’s Michelle Patterson, a clinical psychologist, is the first Canadian study to look at the relationship between foster care, current substance abuse among homeless adults with mental illness.
In B.C. foster children are cut off from government care at their 19th birthday, which means they lose their social worker and financial support, and that they usually have to move out on their own. The Vancouver Sun From Care to Where series looked at the dire outcomes for former foster children when it comes to homelessness, poverty and lack of education. The series found that raising the age of foster care, as many other jurisdictions have done, would  save the government money.
Patterson said she would like to see a more gradual process of independence, where all supports are not lost at once.
“When it comes to raising the age, for some kids I do think that could be a benefit,” Patterson said. “I think (losing all of the social supports at once) is a terrifying experience for a lot of foster care youth. … I like the idea of gradually removing supports, so it’s staggered so they have some time to get used to increased independence and responsibility.”
She said, and her study concludes, that when a child is removed from a family home, it should be an event that triggers a range of interventions that are aimed at preventing negative psychiatric, health and social outcomes among adults.
“I do think the foster care system is in need of serious fundamental reform,” Patterson said. “I would like to see more reforms in terms the kinds of services that are provided and the ways that services are provided, so that kids are not quite as dependent on the system when they reach the age of majority.”
She said she believes the link between foster care, homelessness and mental health all stems from the early trauma.
“It creates a lot of psychological and neurobehavioral challenges that make it really difficult to develop a good sense of self, which is required to form positive relationships, to do well in school and to believe in yourself. It’s that self-stability that is so key,” Patterson said, adding that working with the kids when they are young could help with this issue.
“Early interventions in childhood might change or moderate the cycle of homelessness across generations because early risk factors are often long-standing and drive a trajectory of cumulative risk, potentially leading to severe psychopathology and social exclusion,” the study says.
Patterson also recommends that treatment for substance abuse be available for foster children when they are teenagers and said that transitional housing, coupled with vocational training, is linked with reduced rates of street homelessness.
The study included 442 homeless adults in Vancouver, who were asked a series of questions at the beginning of a year and again at the end of the year. The majority of the people (59 per cent) said they had lived away from their parents before the age of 18, either due to being placed in foster care (37 per cent) or because they ran away from home (25 per cent.) Thirty per cent said they were placed in foster care as children, due to parental abuse or neglect.

Foster care is often multi-generational, the study found, with 31 per cent of the homeless adults having children who are currently or previously in care.
“I think that speaks to the need to really address these issues as early on as we can, because by the time people are homeless adults with these often very severe and debilitating problems, there’s been such a long trajectory and cascade of trauma, loss, and challenging that it becomes very difficult to address at that point,” Patterson said. “So often we focus on the crisis part and I think we should start to look more upstream at preventive, more early intervention kinds of services.””

SFU study confirms link between homelessness, foster care[Vancover Sun 3/10/15 by Tracy Sherlock]

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