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The Importance Of Government Support To Foster Children

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How do you imagine your 18th birthday? Are you surrounded by your dear, beloved family? Are you having a huge party with your family and friends? Imagine dreading the day you turn 18. Imagine waking up on your 18th birthday and being forced to leave the closest place you had to a “home.” Imagine being Duane, out on the streets, homeless, sleeping on park benches or in homeless shelters. Imagine being beaten and robbed, left without any identification papers. This was the life that Duane was forced to live when he became 18 years old.
According to FosterCare, in 2014 alone, there were 415,129 foster children, ⅓ of which will end up homeless once they turn 18. Therefore, the government should offer more support to foster children over the age of 18. With more support from the government, the average 3% of former foster children that earn a degree after completing high school would greatly increase. What many members of the government fail to realize is that going off to college and buying your first house is a lot harder to accomplish without a support system. Without a single stable person that they know they can trust. In addition, only half of these children actually have a job. Therefore, if the government created more programs that at least assisted these children with schooling, there would be less homeless people, less …show more content…

However, some may argue that there are programs in place to support these underprivileged children, but most of these programs are usually not beneficial to the growing mountain of obstacles that these children face or they are not well-known enough to actually make a difference. Either way, the government needs to take action to help raise the quality of life for former foster children that age out of the system before they can properly stand on their own two

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