'Have a Nice Life' Can Become Kids' Reality By Susan McRae
Daily Journal Staff Writer
August 5 2005

          LOS ANGELES - Lilliana and Nicki emancipated from Los Angeles County's foster-care system with big hopes, but it didn't take long for their dreams of freedom and independence to evaporate.
        Without supervision and guidance, Lilliana, a soft-spoken, serious-minded brunette, spent her startup money partying and ended up back with her abusive mom before escaping into marriage with a man six years her senior whom she met on the Internet.
        Nicki, a sassy, tawny-eyed blonde, sporting a cell phone flipped open to a "bad girl" screensaver, got kicked out of a transition home for wild behavior, took to the streets, turned tricks for drug money and lived with other teenage squatters in vacant Hollywood buildings.
        Ironically, the same system that intervenes through the courts to protect youngsters from abuse and neglect often abandons them at 18, with little support, few resources and no safety net.
        "The first morning, I remember waking up and thinking there's nobody here to tell me what to do," recalled Lilliana, now 24 and working in a law office. "It felt weird. I didn't know what to do. I just sat there. After awhile, I went out and walked around."
        Nicki, now 20, said she felt a sense of release from the structured environment of a group home, even though there was no one around to help her, anymore.
        "It was kind of hard to transition, but I was up for the task," said Nicki, whose long-term goals include becoming a licensed auto mechanic, becoming a cosmetologist and earning a degree in child development. "I was doing good, then things slowly went down hill."
        National statistics back up the struggle foster kids have in becoming independent.
        Forty percent experience bouts of homelessness within three years of emancipation. Only 10 percent are able to hold a job for more than a year. Foster youth are also twice as likely to be incarcerated as others their age, and suicide often is an alternative for those who fail to achieve successful independence.
        John M. Hitchcock, executive director of Hillsides, a residential treatment center for at-risk kids, where Lilliana and Nicki spent much of their youth, wanted to do something about it.
        Although Hillsides, other foster-care homes and the Department of Children and Family Services try to provide services to help teens through the transition into independent living, often it isn't enough.
        "The problem in the old days was that kids were released from foster care with a little money and told, 'Have a nice life,'" said Hitchcock, who has run Hillsides for 30 years.
        "Today, you get a little more money, sometimes first and last month's rent and maybe get help with education," he said. "Basically, it amounts to getting a larger grant and saying, 'Have a nice life.'"
        Hitchcock presented the problem to Hillsides' board of directors. He told them about the difficulties kids face. He also talked about the transitional housing available for foster youth that he thought lacked enough support, especially for kids suffering severe emotional and mental scars from years of abuse.
        Together, they came up with an innovative plan.
        With a $715,000 grant from Everychild Foundation, the board bought and renovated a 49-unit apartment building in Pasadena, reserving 10 one-bedroom units that will house 20 emancipated youth in a highly structured transitional living program called "Youth Moving On."
        Those accepted into the program pay no rent to start. Rent is increased until it is capped at $400 a month for the two-year program.
        Opened in April, it has two residents so far: Jacob Concha and Jamal Lewis, both 19. Although both came from Hillsides, the program is open to all emancipated foster youth from Los Angeles County who meet certain basic requirements and are willing to abide by the program's rules.
        Concha has decorated the one-bedroom apartment he and Lewis share with Al Pacino posters. The actor is his hero, he said, because he rose from nothing to become something.
        "Like people in our situation," he said.
        The oldest of six brothers from New Mexico, Concha said all his siblings have grown up in foster care.
        Anxious to leave Hillsides and be on his own, he's getting a crash course in independent living, including paying bills, doing laundry, grocery shopping and, most important, setting goals.
        "It's a lot of responsibility," he acknowledged.
        To pay his way, Concha works at a local restaurant. He's taking dental-assistant courses at Pasadena City College and said he'd like to be a dentist some day.
        Lewis, the youngest of three, has a brother and a sister.
        His dad was never around; his mom is in prison. He came to Hillsides when he was 9.
        If the Youth Moving On program had not been available, Lewis said, he didn't know where he'd be, maybe back with his family with whom, he said, he doesn't get along.
        The program is giving him the support and encouragement he needs.
        "The transition has been pretty cool," he said. "There's hard days and good days. The hard things for me are my work schedule. I have to get there at 8 a.m., and I'm not a morning person."
        Lewis works at a local animal hospital. In the few months, he's gotten compliments and been allowed to groom dogs on his own.
        He's also enrolled at Pasadena City College and recently began taking a class in African dance.
        "I like to write about my problems in songs and then turn them into something funny," he said.
        He recalled one: "I couldn't get a girl if I gave her pearls."
        Hitchcock said the board of directors has committed to $7.1 million, much of it to be raised through additional grants and private funding, to cover all the program's startup costs.
        By the fourth year, he said, he expects the program to be self-supporting through rental revenue.
        Modeled after a similar program in Orange County, the Pasadena program has an on-site program director, Nicole Nardon, and resident manager, Thomas Lee, both Hillsides' employees.
        They run weekly therapy sessions and conduct weekly community and independent-living meetings. Two part-time mental health rehabilitation specialists guide the youth in overcoming challenges they face along the way.
        The young participants are given a hefty notebook explaining what they are expected to accomplish during their first 28 days. On successful completion, they will be asked to sign a year's lease for the apartment. The resident manager will check in with the youth regularly to monitor their progress.
        Although the program is structured, it is geared toward helping the youth achieve successful independence.
        Nicki said she would have done better if the program had been available when she emancipated.
        "I stayed in a transition house for six months," she said. "Over that time, I became out of control, went off my meds, started drinking, smoking pot, partying. I got kicked out of the home."
        "I had no place to go and lived on the streets," Nicki said. "I went from shelter to shelter looking for a place to say, looking for a job. It didn't work out."
        Eventually, she returned to Hillsides for help and was sent to a hospital for treatment.
        For the past year, she's lived at Covenant House, a private nonprofit residence for homeless and runaway youth.
        "I would have done better if I'd had a program," Nicki said.