My So-Called Emancipation: From Foster Care to Homelessness for California Youth

Summary

Human Rights Watch interviewed young people who were removed as children from their family homes for abuse, neglect, or abandonment and placed in the custody and care of the state of California. After leaving foster care, they became homeless. The 63 young people interviewed had clear conclusions about the causes of their homelessness. No one pointed to a single event, nor did any interviewee wholly blame the child welfare system or another person. Instead, they pieced together amosaic of events that spanned their teen years and early adulthood. They described missed opportunities to learn skills, the lack of the ability to support themselves, a shortage of second chances when things did not go right, and the fact that no one cared what happened to them. This report is not a comprehensive review of what California