Twenty-Two Percent of Oklahoma City’s Homeless Spent Time in Foster Care

“Foster children who have “aged out” of the foster care system are one of the underserved populations in Oklahoma when it comes to housing, according to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

The lack of affordable housing in much of Oklahoma especially affects this population group and others who would have difficulties with affordable and appropriate housing even without a shortage.

Statewide, 30 percent of Oklahoma 19-year old foster children who aged out experienced homelessness at least once in the previous two years and 22 percent of the homeless in Oklahoma City spent some of their childhood in foster care.

“We have an obligation to do better by children who are in child welfare custody,” said Connie Schlittler, the Director of the Office of Planning, Research and Statistics for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, at the Oklahoma Housing Summit last week. Oklahoma DHS did a study on foster care children after they aged out with a two-year federal grant, that examined the general well-being of foster children after leaving the system.

Even those who were reunited with their families and those who were adopted experienced homelessness, with nine and six percent respectively.

“What we see here is this is not a good thing: that foster care becomes a pipeline for homelessness,” said Schlittler.

Some of the data came from 1,600 youth between 2009 and 2013 who aged out of the system.

Schlittler also said the study showed at age 19 only 30 percent had completed their high school or equivalent diploma, only 47 percent were employed, eight percent were already parents and seven percent had been incarcerated.

Most of the data was collected from public documents and different service agencies for these youths, but part of the study was based on interviews with former foster care children.

Schlittler said the study did show strengths as well as weaknesses in the existing systems, including strong homeless services for youths, community awareness and collaborative efforts and funding for foster care youths to go to college.

“The problems and the barriers in services is the lack of consistency in services, lack of permanency and stability in placements. We have problems in our DHS policy; I’ll be the first to own that. We can do better ourselves,” said Schlittler.

Another contributing factor is the lack of affordable housing options, especially landlords who are welcoming to young tenants like former foster care youth, as well as transitional community services.

Post-foster care, DHS tries to connect students with colleges or universities and scholarship opportunities, not just for educational reasons but also because students are housed and fed.

But even this does not stop homelessness, as Schlittler described the experience of one former foster care child going to school at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah who had to sleep in their car over winter break because the dorm rooms closed.

“So we have lots of systemic issues we need to address to close this gap, but you guys, we want you to be a partner on this,” Schlittler said at the conference to a members of the real estate and housing industry.

Schlittler said the best way to address the problem is to have a “continuum” of housing options, including transitional and permanent housing as well as utilizing housing options such as Section 8 housing and youth housing subsidies. There also few landlords willing to rent to young adults, and comunities [sic], especially Oklahoma City, need better services and emergency shelters for homeless youths.

“That’s the worse case scenrio, right?” said Schlittler. “None of these kids should ever become homeless to begin with. We should have lots of other things going on before that happens, but when it does happen, we need to be there. We need to have services in place.”

Schlittler also shared a statement from a colleague at DHS.

“It’s wrong that we take kids away from their families and the state of Oklahoma says we’re going to take care of them, and this is the outcome: that they become homeless,” Schlittler said.”

 

Many Oklahomans, once in foster care, age out and are now homeless [Norman Transcript 4/18/16 by Sidney Lee]

REFORM Puzzle Piece