Consider the facts:
• Approximately 20,000 youth “age out” or emancipate from foster care each year.
• 100,000 foster youth live in California alone.
• 65% of youth leaving foster care, in California, do so without a place to live.
• Up to 50% of former foster/probation youth become homeless within the first 18 months of emancipation.
•58% of all young adults accessing federally funded youth shelters in 1997 had previously been in foster care.
• Less than half of former foster youth are employed 2.5-4 years after leaving foster care, and only 38% have maintained employment for at least one year.
•44% of foster youth are less likely to graduate from high school. After emancipation, 40–50 percent never complete high school.
• Girls in foster care are six times more likely to give birth before the age of 21 than the general population.
• 60% of women who emancipate from foster care become parents within 2.5-4 years after exiting care.
• Parents with a history of foster care are nearly twice as likely as parents without such history to see their own children placed in foster care or become homeless.
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