From Private Disasters
On a winter Saturday in 1993, when the streets of Cincinnati were piled high with snow, two look-alike tow-headed brothers spent all day locked in the bedroom of their foster home. They picked up and dropped the few baby toys scattered around the room, napped on twin beds, stared at the ceiling, whined -- "I'm hungry," "I need to pee" -- rolled over, thumbs in mouths. When the younger brother wet himself, they panicked and stuffed the clothes at the back of the closet.Triston Day, nine, and his seven-year-old brother had been removed from a neglectful family in a ramshackle corner of Cincinnati, where they'd lived with a mostly absent father and a mother plagued by mental health problems. As the oldest of five, Triston had scrounged money around the house, bought cereal and milk with it, and poured out servings for the younger children. He and his brother initially were delighted with the plentiful food at the foster home. But they quickly saw that the foster mother doted upon her own son and ridiculed the foster children. "Oh! Look who wet the bed again!" she'd say at breakfast. Or, "He's an idiot." On weekends, she pretended the Day brothers disobeyed as an excuse for locking them in the bedroom.
Suddenly, after dark on that endless winter Saturday, the foster mother burst in upon the boys. "Get up off those beds!" she shrieked. "Go stand in the corners like I told you."
"Why? We weren't doing anything," cried Triston. "We're hungry." The woman grabbed his arm and twisted it, then stormed out. The brothers whimpered in the corners. Little by little, they slid over to the second-floor window, shoved it open, climbed up on the sill, and crouched there. In the distance, the Ohio River was crusty with ice, the darkening street empty. Shivering with cold and fright, the boys counted to three and jumped, landing hard on a parked car. They then slid into a snowdrift and took off.
Fast-forward nearly a decade. Triston Day is a teenager. He is on the verge of leaving the foster care system again -- not by jumping out of it this time, but by "aging out." He is about to turn 18, a birthday that will trigger his "emancipation" from the custody of Ohio's Hamilton County Department of Job & Family Services (JFS). He has never forgotten the yearning for home that propelled him out of a second-floor window into the snowy air years earlier. He has not forgotten, because in some ways he has not yet landed. Triston Day is still looking for a home.
He is not alone. As many as 25,000 teenagers in America's foster care system turn 18 and "age out" of state custody every year. Obligated by law to leave their foster families, group homes or juvenile shelters, thousands of these young people make a tragic, almost invisible migration. For many, the need for permanent homes is going to be met by homeless shelters, jails, psych wards, flophouses and the streets. One 1998 survey found that more than 25 percent of Wisconsin males who had been in foster care ended up in prison. And on any given day in America, an estimated 12 percent of the homeless are former foster care kids.
These young people and their private disasters won't be part of the media reporting on a broken foster care system. But their unwanted pregnancies, their addictions, their armed robberies, their tragedies are symptomatic of the failures of the programs designed to protect and raise them.
Triston Day finally found a pair of kind foster parents. John Urban is a forensic chemist with the FDA, and his wife, Darla, is a social worker. Triston came to them that same year he jumped out the window, and they raised him as an older brother to their three biological children -- Jacob, Katie and Sarah -- in a warmly disheveled, middle-class, split-level house. Art projects are banked against a wall of the dining room; a basketball hoop hangs near the driveway. "You're not my foster brother; you're my real brother," Katie Urban told Triston once, and it brought tears to his eyes.
Meanwhile, Triston's year-and-a-half-younger biological brother grew up in a series of foster homes. Three of Triston's siblings were luckier. They were adopted and found families they could call their own.
The foster and adoptive families arrange an annual reunion of the Day children. One of the siblings is brought from another state to Cincinnati for the event. The brothers and sister, some with new names, all of whom look alike, linger shyly apart for the first few moments, until Triston sets them all laughing with horseplay and tickling.
Free to Go
He lets his guard down only on these rare days of happiness. He frolics like a preschooler, pushes the younger kids on the swings, hangs upside down like a monkey, lets the kids tackle him and pile on. He throws a football with his brothers, laughs until his side hurts. The onset of dusk will break his heart.The return of the cars of the adoptive and foster parents means it's all over. Triston will leave the younger children more abruptly than he intends to, hugging each one roughly, then turning and striding away, his dark eyebrows knitted in pain.
More than once, as the years go by, the Urbans offer to adopt Triston. Paradoxically, it is the longing for family, the loyalty he feels toward his birth siblings, that compels him to decline. "No," he says without commentary, but he is thinking: I'm afraid to let go. I'm afraid I'll forget them. I'm the oldest. So Triston remains the foster son, the foster brother.
Adolescence is rough going for Triston Day and the Urbans. He is their first teenager, and the sudden flares of his temper alarm them. He shouts and slams doors, disputes their right to tell him anything. "You're not my real parents!" he barks through tears. He flouts curfew. Darla sits stunned in the dark of the living room at 2 a.m., asking herself what she and John have done to make Triston so angry. What have they not given him? How have they failed him?
Then Triston turns 18, which means soon nobody will be legally responsible for him, not even the state of Ohio. Darla loves Triston, but he's become insufferable. "We're just alike, hard-headed," she says. "I have the feeling I might be a better mother to Triston if he's not living under our roof anymore."
So Triston is free to go. He places an unzipped duffel bag on the floor of his room. Shirts on hangers lie across his bed. But where is he supposed to go anyway? His birth father has disappeared, his birth mother is unstable and his siblings are part of other families. Triston attends school, works, plays sports; his grades are good enough that he can expect to go to college, unlike some 70 percent of emancipated foster kids who don't pursue higher education; he wants to be a forensic chemist like John Urban. Can he maintain that schedule, those friendships, his ambitions, if he lives on the streets, becoming part of the young urban vagabond underclass? The Urbans argue that there has got to be an alternative. Triston's caseworkers agree. And in Hamilton County, Ohio, there is a better way.
In many American cities today, an emancipated teenager is given a firm handshake, a squeeze on the shoulder and a black garbage bag to collect his possessions. The financial support provided by the state can now go to a younger foster child. "All we had to offer was to ask a kid, 'Do you remember so-and-so? You think you could stay with her?' " says Lee Butler, a Hamilton County JFS supervisor. "You'd be afraid to pick up the newspaper. Every time you heard of a crime, you'd think, Don't let it be one of my kids. The average age of financial independence in America is 26. Yet our kids, abused and neglected, most of whom have not finished high school, maybe a third of whom have some degree of developmental disability, are supposed to take care of themselves at 18."
"It was tearing us all up," says Bob Mecum, executive director of Lighthouse Youth Services (LYS), a nationally recognized private child welfare agency in Cincinnati. "These were kids we loved. They aged out of the system. Then they called us. 'Can you come get me?' 'I ran out of money.' 'I think I need to go to the hospital and I don't have health insurance.' 'My boyfriend kicked me out and the baby's due.' "
Heartbroken that the foster care system was failing these children, Mecum, in 1980, came up with a different plan. What if LYS began preparing foster care kids for safe and competent independence at 18 or 19? Forget dropping the kids at bus stations and calling it "emancipation." What if, instead, each young person was set up in his or her own apartment, with the supervision and support of Lighthouse and JFS? Little by little, a young man or woman would take over all payments of rent, utilities and transportation; little by little, prior to emancipation, the young person would gain a home of his own and the skills to keep himself in it.
Too Early
With a green light from the welfare department, the first five young people entered Lighthouse's Independent Living Program (ILP) in 1981. "We were a little shaky at the beginning," says Mecum. But today more than 1,000 Hamilton County 18- and 19-year-olds have moved into their own apartments, finished school, begun careers. Lighthouse's ILP has become a model for the nation.Triston Day is one of the luckiest foster kids in America. If you're going to age out of the system, Cincinnati is now a very good place to do that.
So Triston continues to live with the Urbans and begins Hamilton County's yearlong course in self-sufficiency. The county will retain custody of him and continue to pay the Urbans for his upkeep as long as he participates in ILP. He studies nutrition and hygiene, job skills, budgeting, cooking and laundry. He researches the answers to questions like "If I had legal problems, I could call ______. If I had a gas leak, I could call ______. If I was depressed or suicidal, I could call ______." He opens a bank account and begins saving for a car. Each evening, after his school homework is done, Triston turns to his ILP homework. He looks up to find Darla smiling at him from the doorway. She and John marvel at his dedication, support him in his effort to grow up overnight.
Triston doggedly attends six months' worth of Saturday seminars on self-sufficiency along with 150 other Hamilton County foster care teens. Graduates of the program, young people now in their 20s, tell them, via videotape, true stories of hard times.
"I didn't do what I had to do at first," says one man. "I'm thinking that if I don't have the rent money on the first of the month, I'll just give it to the landlord by the end of the month. But it don't work like that. He doesn't get his money first of the month, end of the month I'm going to be sitting outside."
"The hardest thing is that your friends have moms and dads," says another program graduate, "and you really don't have anyone to talk to."
Once again, the unzipped duffel bag appears, this time filled with clothes. Boxes are loaded with books, CDs and sports trophies; small foster siblings weep, "Triston, why do you have to go?" John Urban helps remove Triston's posters from the wall. The whole family gets into the car and follows Triston and his counselor to his first solo apartment, on the ground floor of an old two-story brick building. It is walking distance from the lunch shop where Triston works, which is a good thing, since he doesn't own a car yet. He has been a model ILP student. He has demonstrated the ability to pay half his rent and utilities each month, while maintaining his grades.
Everyone feels a mix of pride, excitement and melancholy while beginning to unpack the boxes. Inside the apartment, the younger kids zip around opening and closing cabinets, trying the faucets, flipping on lights. Darla makes Triston's bed, then begins to unpack dishes and pans provided by Lighthouse. "Look! A griddle! This is great!" she calls out from the kitchen. John checks the thermostat and makes sure the back door locks securely. Suddenly, amid tears and hugs, it is time to kiss Triston goodbye. It's a school night; the little kids need to go home to bed.
"Can I come visit you, Triston?" asks Katie tearfully.
"You better," he says, ruffling her hair while she hugs him.
"Come for lunch on Sunday!" calls Darla. And then more earnestly, looking into his eyes, "Call anytime you need anything, sweetie." Then they bustle out, the door closes behind them, and Triston Day, a high school junior, is living on his own. Somehow this isn't what he had in mind.
The silence scares him. The loneliness feels like a stomachache. He's cold. He digs in a box and finds a sweatshirt. He is hungry. Darla has left behind money and groceries. He makes himself a sandwich, but the knot in his belly feels worse. Too early, he gets into his pajamas, brushes his teeth, hangs up his toothbrush, which looks silly -- a lone toothbrush in a toothbrush rack. Too early, he gets into bed. Did he lock the doors? Did he turn down the heat? He is too cold and sad to check. He lies awake.
Mother Hen
Every day in Cincinnati, 85 ILP kids are living in their own apartments under the watchful gaze of Lighthouse and JFS caseworkers. "On any given day, a third of them are doing fine," says Mark Kroner, director of Lighthouse's ILP. "A third are on the edge, and a third are turning my hair white as we speak."In the Lighthouse headquarters, caseworkers regularly swap stories. There's the particularly troubled kid who used his one phone call from jail to call the program's assistant director. There's the young woman who skipped the anger-management training class because, she explains, "I had a nasty fight with my boyfriend and didn't feel like going." There's the youth who called to ask for the remainder of her savings. "I'm leaving this program because I'm tired of all you being on my back!" she said. Then she asked, "Who's going to help me move my stuff?"
Then there are the successes: The student who's become high school valedictorian. A former charge who just returned from the Army in Korea and plans to continue her work in the chemical materials field, which should lead to a good private-sector job. And a former client of Kroner's who called to say, "Hey, Mark, thought I'd let you know I'm supervising eight people at work now."
Triston applies for a second job, as a groundskeeper at a nearby park. He needs to earn more money -- he wants that car -- and wants to spend less time in his apartment. He always feels cold there. The loneliness never goes away. He props up photos of himself with his friends, with the Urbans, with his biological siblings. It's not enough to stave off depression. He begins hitting lows that scare him. He knows there are places to turn for help and phones a counselor. He talks through his sorrow over breaking up with a girlfriend; he talks about his isolation. "I'd go home if I could, to the Urbans," he says. "Just to be with them."
When she visits Triston, Darla knows at once that he's stressed. "When Triston's upset, he cleans," she says. "This place is immaculate." When she chides him about the military precision of his shined shoes, his pressed shirts, his alphabetized CD collection, he sheepishly points to his tips from work, a stack of dollar bills: They are arranged by serial number, in chronological order.
In the spring of 2003, Triston, 19, is working 70 hours a week. With money in the bank, he starts looking for a nicer place to live. He drives his new used car up into Cincinnati's hilly southern outskirts and finds a modern, upscale brick complex with the perfect one-bedroom apartment. It overlooks a forested hillside sloping to the banks of the Ohio River.
Soon after, the Urbans throw a backyard party in honor of Triston's high school graduation. His siblings and their families drive into town for the celebration. They caravan over to Triston's new apartment for a tour. Everyone exclaims over the smallest things, like guest towels in the bathroom and a spice rack in the kitchen. When his caseworker comes to visit, she's flabbergasted. Triston invites her to sit on a handsome plaid sofa in his living room or on deck chairs on the balcony.
"Triston is such a success story," says Mark Kroner. "He learned at 19 what his friends aren't going to learn until 25." He and Triston agree that, in a couple of years, Triston will become a Lighthouse mentor to younger teens who are on the terrifying brink of aging out.
"We're so proud of him," says Darla Urban. She and John once again extend the offer to Triston to adopt him. They are not inviting him to move back in with them, nor does he want to, but they invite him to be part of their family, legally, forever. This time Triston says yes, and plans are made for the adoption to go through sometime in the near future. He has been accepted by Cincinnati State, and hopes to work toward a career in forensic chemistry like his foster dad.
The parents of two of his younger brothers allow the boys to stay with Triston for a week at a time during the summer. Triston turns into a mother hen. He hauls in groceries, cooks big meals, does his brothers' laundry, is happier than he ever thought possible.
"Once I'm started in my career, I want to get married," Triston says. "I hope my wife and I have lots of kids. We'll live near my brothers and sister. And we'll take in foster kids, for sure. There are a lot of kids out there who really need homes."