After leaving foster care, Nahdiyah found housing through The Possibilities Project. (Photo by Brian Palmer)
Nahdiyah slept well the first night in her new apartment, even though there was only one lock on the door — not seven, like the home where she grew up in New York City. Her roommate, a student at Virginia State University, is nice — and it only took about two months to get comfortable in the new space.
Slowly but surely, she’s begun moving her things from the periphery of her bedroom — where, for months, boxes and belongings remained quietly stacked in the corners — to christen it as hers.
“I didn’t really unpack yet, because every time I get comfortable, for some reason something always happens,” says Nahdiyah, who asked to be identified only by her first name because of safety concerns. “But I actually got comfortable this time, so it feels weird.”
Her voice trails off as we chat outside a coffee shop; it’s apparent that the feeling of being comfortable is still settling in, even though she moved into her apartment in 2016. The 21-year-old splits her time between working at Virginia Commonwealth University, attending classes at Reynolds Community College, tutoring and other obligations, as well as visiting her former foster family, which she affectionately refers to as her “godfamily.”
She was able to move into the apartment through The Possibilities Project. It’s the brainchild of two local nonprofits: the Better Housing Coalition and the Children’s Home Society of Virginia — a nonsectarian, licensed child-placement and adoption agency. The program, which provides financial support as well as counseling, received some funding as a result of the state’s “Fostering Futures” legislation that took effect in July 2016 and extends services to youth ages 18 to 21, but the majority is provided by private donors and foundations.
About three years ago, data showed that Virginia was last in the nation for youth aging out of the foster care system to a stable home environment, says Bruin Richardson, chief advancement officer at Children’s Home Society. To better gauge the need for services, the Children’s Home Society and Better Housing Coalition commissioned a study conducted by Child Trends, a Maryland-based research nonprofit. The study, published in November 2017, included recommendations and best practices for effective policy implementation.
In Virginia, 78 percent of youth exited the foster care system in 2014 to “permanency,” meaning reunification with family, adoption or guardianship — but that rate is well below the national average of 88 percent.
In April, the Virginia Home for Boys and Girls launched an independent living arrangement for former foster youth. (Photo by Brian Palmer)
The Virginia Home for Boys and Girls, a nonprofit serving children in crisis, is also addressing the issue by offering former foster youth an independent living arrangement on its Henrico County campus. “Our primary goal is to help them become independent without creating dependence,” says Karen Swansey of the VHBG.
Diehdre Gregory, program manager for The Possibilities Project, says advocates had assumed youth would flock to the project once it launched, but instead they faced a different challenge: They couldn’t find the kids.
“Once they were out of the system and the box had been checked and they were done, nobody knew where they were,” Richardson says. “They are a kind of forgotten group of people.”
The lack of connection can be disastrous. According to the Child Trends study, by age 21, 25 percent of Virginia youth who aged out of foster care have been incarcerated within the past two years, and 27 percent have been homeless. Forty-two percent of aged-out youth drop out of high school, and 71 percent of women are pregnant by age 21.
Though stark, the findings are not shocking for young adults such as Nahdiyah — who, until The Possibilities Project, was unsure what her next steps would be after leaving a group home in Glen Allen, an “emergency placement” by Child Protective Services. She was one of the oldest residents in the group home until she turned 18 and left to attend college at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton.
She thought she was ready to make the transition — but the drastic shift left her feeling isolated, unprepared and depressed. She came back to Richmond without a stable housing solution; most of her family lives in New York City, and she was concerned about finding a place to stay that was both affordable and near accessible transportation.
“Until people start recognizing there’s a situation, it won’t get fixed,” Nahdiyah says. “And the situation is homeless youth and homelessness period, and a lot of youth end up in jail, or dead, or in a place they don’t feel safe or don’t belong.”
“Until people start recognizing there’s a situation, it won’t get fixed.” —Nahdiyah, participant in The Possibilities Project
Too often, youth are ill-equipped to be on their own. Many carry the additional burden of trauma, which can be difficult to overcome, especially without meaningful attachment and support systems. This is something Nahdiyah still struggles with.
“At one point, like last week, I wasn’t in a good mood at all — I put on a front like, ‘OK, I’m good’ — but in the back of my mind, I’m having this mini panic attack like, ‘What if all this gets cut? Then what? Where will everybody else go? What will they do?’ Some people don’t have anybody or anywhere else but here.”
Nahdiyah considers herself lucky, though she still deals with feelings of guilt for accepting help through The Possibilities Project when she’s used to so little.
“You’ve got to learn how to get out of that mindset,” she says, “but it’s a chance everyone should have.”
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