Foster Youth Across the U.S. Are Aging into Homelessness, and Housing Failures Are at the Center
In some parts of the United States, foster children are sleeping in government buildings and even jails.
If no foster homes are available, some agencies assign children to sleep in child welfare offices. Children as young as 7 have reportedly slept on the floors of agency buildings in states like Georgia, California, and Washington. In more extreme cases, youth have been held in juvenile detention facilities simply because there was nowhere else for them to go. In Illinois, child welfare officials were sued after a 15-year-old foster child spent seven months in juvenile detention while awaiting placement.
This is homelessness — not “emergency placement,” as agencies often describe it. Children sleeping in offices and jails do not have stable housing. And yet, these placements are still counted as such.
A System Under Strain
So how did we get here? To put it simply: the foster care system is collapsing under pressure. While it has always had flaws, today’s crisis is being driven by a severe shortage of foster homes. As of 2023, 43 states reported declines in the number of licensed foster families. With fewer homes available, agencies are increasingly forced to place children in unsafe or temporary placements.
At the same time, housing instability is pushing more children into the system in the first place. One of the top reasons children are removed from their families is housing inadequacy — anything from a landlord neglecting repairs to the threat of eviction or homelessness. But this raises a troubling question:
If a child is removed because their family lacks stable housing, and the system cannot provide stable housing either, what has actually been solved?
At every stage of the foster care pipeline, housing is the defining factor. First, a parent loses custody due to inadequate housing. Then, the state struggles to provide stable housing through placements. Finally, when youth age out, they are once again expected to secure housing on their own — often with few resources.
The pattern is clear: housing instability follows these young people at every step.
In New York City, roughly 31% of youth aging out of foster care reported being unable to secure housing. Nationwide, former foster youth are disproportionately represented in homeless populations, with studies consistently estimating that up to 40% of unhoused adults have spent time in foster care.
For many young people, the barriers stack quickly. College is often unrealistic without stable housing. Entry-level jobs rarely pay enough to afford rent. Even when youth can afford an apartment, they often lack a credit history, stable employment, or co-signers — all requirements many landlords demand.
Without support, the transition to adulthood becomes a direct path to housing instability.
The Structural Barriers to Housing
In an interview with Invisible People, Sarah Solon, Partner at HR&A Advisors, emphasized that the biggest barrier is the broader affordable housing crisis.
Solon said no state or major city has more than 60 affordable homes for every 100 households that need them. “LA has a shortage of almost 500,000 affordable homes. So does NYC,” she continued.
Even when programs exist, they are often difficult to access. Public housing waitlists can stretch for years. Housing vouchers are hard to use without guidance. Supportive housing, when available, varies dramatically in quality. And for young people aging out of care, navigating these systems without consistent adult support can be nearly impossible.
Where Solutions Are Emerging
Preventing the foster care to homelessness pipeline requires intervention at multiple stages. One approach is to prevent unnecessary removals in the first place.
In some states, policies now aim to stop child removals based solely on housing instability. Instead of equating poverty with neglect, these efforts focus on stabilizing families through housing support.
Another solution is expanding supportive housing specifically designed for youth aging out of care. Cities like Houston and Nashville are investing in targeted housing models that combine stable housing with mentorship and life-skills support.
Advocates are also pushing for higher standards. The Center for Fair Futures Youth Advisory Board and six Fair Futures Housing Design Fellows released a report outlining detailed, actionable steps to create better housing for youth exiting foster care. Their recommendations include:
- Policy reforms to maximize available housing resources
- Better use of existing housing stock
- Creation of dedicated housing funds to build higher-quality units
Solon endorses their work:
“The Fair Futures Housing Design Fellows created a quality checklist that defined the quality standards that all housing for young people aging out of care should meet,” she said. “These standards are so specific and such an important contribution — it would be great to see government, philanthropies, and mission-driven funders adopt these. Young people don’t just need more housing, they need better housing.”
Lived Experience: When Housing Fails
For former foster care youth who do manage to acquire housing, too often that housing is also inadequate. Despite support from federal, state, and local governments, New York City’s foster youth face very limited housing options.
“I was in a shelter with a baby when I got off the NYCHA waiting list. I jumped at the first opportunity to get out,” said Christine Joseph, a former foster youth and Fair Futures Housing Design Fellow. “Now, I live with my three children plus me jammed into just one room.” There are still maintenance request tickets open from previous tenants…who lived in my apartment over five years ago. There are creepy crawlers because the exterminator doesn’t come. There was a major flood that I had to clean up myself. I have to spend my own money to address the issues in my building.”
Cheyanne Deopersaud, another former foster youth, described moving into supportive housing at 19 with high hopes, only to find unsafe conditions.
“I was so excited to finally have my own space after being shuffled around in the system since I was 15. But my hopes for a happy, new, independent life would soon be dashed,” she said.
“As I approached the new apartment building that would be my home, my heart sank,” Deopersaud continued. “Trash littered the area. It was a complete mess. It looked like a place everyone else had given up on, yet I was expected to feel ‘lucky’ to have it instead of facing homelessness.”
“When I came home every night, after being a full-time student and working two jobs to sustain myself, as many young people who age out of the child welfare system do, I would find men loitering in front, smoking, and drinking,” Deopersaud said. “The floors smelled like urine every day. I even experienced neighbors defecating in bags that they left in the hallways. There were always flies and mice. I could see mice in my apartment, and hear them eating through the sheetrock and cabinets to get to my food and snacks at night. I couldn’t bring myself to cook in the kitchen. I thought to myself, ‘I am never bringing anyone here, I am so ashamed.’”
Through her research surveying youth in supportive housing, Deopersaud found:
- 46% reported rodents
- 58% reported infestations
- 37% experienced power outages
- 35% reported serious safety hazards
For young people just beginning adulthood, unsafe housing can become yet another destabilizing force — and, in many cases, a precursor to homelessness.
A Pipeline That Should Not Exist
If the best housing options available to former foster youth are unsafe or unstable, the system has failed them.
“We have plenty of time to help young people get connected to housing before they leave foster care,” Solon told Invisible People. “We just need to adopt the policies and creative financing strategy that will create more quality, affordable homes for these young people.”
“As the brilliant Jeremy Christopher Kohomban, PhD, President and CEO of The Children’s Village, has said to me: ‘We should consider it a failure when someone who is in the care of one of our public systems ends up in another one’,” Solon concluded.
The foster care to homelessness pipeline is not inevitable. It is the result of systemic housing failures at every stage. Stronger tenant protections, housing-first family preservation policies, and higher-quality supportive housing could disrupt this pipeline before it begins — or at any point along the way.
Because when housing instability defines childhood, it too often defines adulthood. And that is a pipeline we have the power to dismantle.