June 8, 2006

In California, 18 is the age of majority -- the age when, at least in legal terms, teenagers step over the threshold into adulthood -- but very few 18-year-olds are really on their own. Recent surveys show that most will receive some financial aid from their parents until they are 28.

Sadly, that's not true for the state's own children, the 85,000 kids in foster care who are removed from their homes each year because of abuse or neglect. For those kids, the state is their parent, their legal guardian. And each year, the state abandons some of its children, the 4,500 or so foster kids who reach 18.

Most of those young adults are, like all other 18-year-olds, woefully unprepared to care for themselves. Without the support of their parents, a disproportionate number of them end up adrift -- homeless, in prison or jail.

Several bills in the Legislature would help these parentless kids.

The most important is Assembly Bill 2481 by Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa. The measure would increase the amount the state pays families to take in a foster child. The family foster care rate, currently a woefully inadequate $693 to $818 a month, has not increased since 2001. By contrast, the state's group home foster care rate provides between $4,944 and $5,027 per child per month. AB 2481 would raise the family rate 5 percent and increase the amount annually based on the California Necessities Index.

The importance of this measure goes beyond the money involved. It would entice more families to consider taking in foster children. Experience has shown that families who take in foster children often fall in love with them and adopt them, creating what every child needs to become a healthy adult -- a real permanent connection with family.

Three other bills would help support fragile 18-year-olds who age out of the foster care system. Senate Bill 1576 by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Los Angeles, would increase state funding to help provide housing and other kinds of transitional assistance to former foster children who are now young adults between 18 and 24. Currently, transition programs require counties to pay 60 percent to 75 percent of the cost, but few had the resources to provide matching funds, so participation was minuscule. Also, any additional funding is likely to be offset by savings. Foster youth who receive services are less likely to be incarcerated or homeless and more likely to complete high school than those who don't.

Assembly Bill 2284 by Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, would make it easier for former foster care youth to retain their government financed health care coverage to age 21.

Finally, Assembly Bill 2489 by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would expand the Cal Grant program to give greater assistance to foster kids who go on to college or other postsecondary education programs.

When the state took abused and neglected children out of their homes, it took on the role of parent. As any parent of young adults knows, a parent's responsibilities do not end when a child turns 18. That should be true for California's kids as well.