15 Graduates of Foster Care Get Their Own Place

You’re 18, just out of the county foster care system and on your own for the first time.

County officials call this step emancipation, but your future might look like this: No parents to help out with the first month’s rent--or anything else, for that matter. No credit to get an apartment. You crash at friends’ places and shelters, trying to stay afloat. Sometimes you land on the street because you have nowhere else to go.

But the future for 15 young people leaving foster care this month is decidedly different: A new, two-story apartment building. Monthly allowance for food and expenses. A computer lab with Internet access. Daily courses in life skills, like balancing a checkbook, budgeting and writing a resume. A new job. And maybe, for the first time, their own home.

This was moving week for the first batch of residents at the Margarita Mendez Apartments, a new complex in East Los Angeles built especially for youths leaving the county foster care system--the first such facility in the state.

Every year, about 1,000 foster care “graduates” are emancipated in Los Angeles County. For many, the exhilaration of being out of the “system” is quickly tempered by the realities of living on their own.

Without a stable family, many become independent without knowing how to grocery shop, look for housing or find a job.

Almost half end up on the streets within six months, officials say.

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“There is a crying need” for housing such as the Mendez Apartments, said Fred Ali, executive director of Covenant House California, a shelter for homeless and runaway youths. “Finally, these kids are being discovered. They were just slipping through the cracks when they turned 18.”

Mindful of the number of former foster children who end up homeless, and anxious to provide emancipated youth with real-life skills, county officials collaborated with housing officials to design a facility that provides an array of support and resources for these new adults.

The peach and beige complex, named for a pioneering county social worker, has nine townhouse-style units, each one furnished with overstuffed couches, a table and beds donated by community groups. Skylights let sunlight pour into the apartments. An enclosed courtyard allows children to play outside safely.

Next door to their new apartments, the young residents can work in a fully furnished computer lab or study in the multimedia library. Every day, a social worker will offer counseling and courses in life skills.

Funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the $1.1-million facility was built by the county and the Community Enhancement Corporation, a nonprofit community development group. Additional funding came from the nonprofit United Friends of the Children and the Weingart Foundation.

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On Thursday, the young residents hauled in boxes, unpacked clothes and excitedly explored their new digs.

“This is like a dream,” said Arturo, 20, who can only be identified by his first name until he is emancipated next week. He has been in foster care for the last three years.

“It’s a big step for me, becoming an adult,” he said. “Without this--I would have been stuck. I would have had no support.”

Gazing around the courtyard lined with new trees, he said: “This . . . is like it was made for us.”

Groups like Covenant House have found that many young people like Arturo need more than just shelter, Ali said.

“If you’re going to keep them off the streets, you have to surround them with a variety of services,” he said. “Unless you have that, there’s not much of a chance.”

The Mendez Apartments, officials hope, will provide a bridge from the insulated world of foster care to the realities of living alone for the first time.

The residents can get a job with the Community Enhancement Corporation, which will hire them to rehabilitate buildings in the area.

Matilda Romero, the resident manager who lives in the building full-time, promises to be “la abuelita”--the grandmother--to these youths, cooking them meals and showing them how to take care of a home.

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“This will be a big family,” said Romero, smiling as the first tenants unpacked their boxes.

Joshua Markila was the first to move in, and he has quickly settled into his apartment.

The dishes and glasses are already stacked in rows in his cabinets. Upstairs, his bed is neatly made with a bright green blanket.

“I’m trying to make it like a home,” he said, smiling bashfully.

Markila, 19, had been in foster care and group homes since he was 2. When he was emancipated last year, he ended up in a shelter, and then on the streets of Hollywood for three months.

“Most group homes pay for your phone bills, your food,” he said. “When you come out of that, you don’t know what it takes. What’s good about this place is that they treat you like an adult, like you’re on your own.”

But, he added, “you can’t take your freedom for granted--you have to be responsible.”

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Residents can stay in the apartments up to 18 months, but they have to work or go to school full time. Each one is required to pay the county 10% of their monthly income, which is put in a trust and returned to them when they leave.

Currently, the county Department of Children and Family Services houses about 100 former foster children in apartments scattered throughout Los Angeles as part of their Bridges to Independence program. About 50 more are on a waiting list.

But the Mendez Apartments are the first designed for this population, and with additional HUD grants, officials hope to build more units like them.

“What we need to do is extend that notion of a family,” said Sharyn Logan, an administrator with the county’s Department of Children and Family Services. “This will give them a head start on life, and they’ll be ready to face the world a lot better.”

In the next several years, officials said, they hope to house 300 to 400 young people leaving foster care.

“It’s a real blessing to have a place like this,” said Rafael Angulo, the county social worker assigned to the Mendez residents. “A lot of these kids are not used to doing things on their own. It’s really an opportunity for them to redefine their lives. If you’re in the system, you’re a foster child, period. Now, you can figure out who you are, outside of that.”

For some, the center is a home they’ve never had.

Idalia Lopez wanted to cry when she walked into her new apartment.

“I was really emotional,” Lopez, 18, said in Spanish. “It’s all so beautiful. I’ve never lived in something like this.”

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Lopez had been in foster homes, off and on, since she was 14. “I felt very alone,” she said.

Now she plans to finish high school and study cosmetology. “This is really important because you can learn to be independent, save money and help yourself,” she said.

Katrina, 18, said living in the Mendez Apartments will help her reach her goal of becoming a social worker. Like Arturo, she is waiting to be emancipated.

“I’ve been there, so I can understand the kids,” she said, as she unpacked dishes and pots in her new kitchen Thursday. She has lived in foster homes for the last 11 years.

The apartment will help her save money while she takes classes at East Los Angeles College and works full time.

“I think this can help out a lot of teenagers,” she said. “It’s someplace to come home to.”