Are we raising the next generation of homeless people?
Young people whose families can’t raise them fall under the jurisdiction of the county, which arranges for foster care and, ideally, provides enough resources to give them a decent path toward a self-sufficient adulthood.
It’s a hard road, though. On average, kids who have been removed from their families don’t do as well in school and have a much greater likelihood of ending up in the criminal justice system. Years of neglect and emotional abuse can make foster youth easy targets for sex traffickers.
And all too often, foster care becomes a pipeline to homelessness.
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