Grants will help foster kids get first apartment

The state of Washington is about to lay out what might be the smartest $676,589 it will spend over the next two years.

It has approved three grants to help foster kids aging out of the system. The aim is to keep them from becoming homeless.

The grants start with the big basic: a home. They follow through with guidance on how to pay for and maintain a place of your own. These, remember, are foster children, whose family homes were a mess. Many have moved around a good deal, and most go out on their own with few resources. They haven’t had the chance to learn by example.

“It’s really pretty simple,” said Kathy Bannon of Pierce County Alliance. “These kids have nothing. The average kid leaving foster care leaves with a black garbage bag with all their worldly possessions. These kids have nowhere to go.”

Bannon will manage the $269,689 Pierce County Alliance won with a proposal heavy on partnerships and community support. Community Youth Services in Olympia will get $258,676, Catholic Family and Child Service in Yakima will get $148,224.

Olympia’s Community Youth Services has a similar program in place, one that Tacoma and Pierce County might consider. “For the past four or five years, we’ve had transitional housing for young people 18 to 24 who have been homeless or living in very unsafe conditions,” said Charles Shelan, the group’s executive director.

The hitch is that it required the 45 kids in it to be homeless or endangered before they got in.

“With this grant, we can be preventive,” Shelan said. “We don’t have to wait until they are homeless.”

Shelan’s team will serve 12 foster kids in Thurston and Lewis counties.

In Yakima, Darlene Darnell, director of Catholic Community Services, will have $148,224 to get kids housed with federal rental assistance and settled into decent jobs. Because they got less than they hoped, Darnell said, the 10 young participants from Benton, Yakima and Franklin counties will live two to an apartment.

In Pierce County, the program will be heavy on collaboration. Pacific Lutheran University will work with kids interested in the Foster Care to College program. The Department of Social and Health Services Children’s Administration will add $25,000 in Street Youth funds. Camp Fire Teen Outreach, Tacoma Goodwill, Tacoma Public Schools, the Greater Pierce County Community Network, Homeless Youth Coalition, Youth Resources, and the Tacoma Pierce County Employment & Training Consortium have all signed on with support.

But that’s not quite enough.

Tacoma Housing Authority is already lining up housing. Each young person will sign a lease and pay a share of the rent, said Nancy Vignec, special projects officer at Tacoma Housing Authority. That share will grow as the young person’s income grows.

Here’s where you come in.

Think of that black plastic garbage bag, and then think of an apartment.

These kids need beds, cookware, dishes, bedding, towels, chairs, tables, lamps, books, silverware, cleaning supplies, toiletries, sofas, televisions.

Donations can be new or gently used. If you have an item to donate, ask yourself if you’d offer it to your beloved mother. That’s the “gently used” standard Bannon’s aiming for.

But wait, there’s more. She’d like a pool of volunteer mentors, counselors, barbers and beauticians. “Internships and apprenticeships would be great,” Bannon said. “The goal is that they make a livable wage and are not tied to the system any more.”

Interested in telling these young people that you’re doing more than just hoping for the best? Call Kathy Bannon at 253-502-5491. Prove to the state that this is money well-spent.

How to help

Call Kathy Bannon at 253-502-5491 to donate new or gently used household goods to older foster kids getting their first apartment.