The article below quotes some of HEY’s advocacy partners in their fight to keep transitional housing funds for former foster youth. HEY is closely involved with many Guardian and Renaissance Scholars programs, and strongly urges our supporters to contact your representatives to show our support for this program. According to Amy Lemley of the John Burton Foundation, for every $1.00 spent on housing services for former foster youth, there is over a $2.00 savings on costs for future services.
-Dana Mandolesi
HEY Project Manager
[from the article Foster youth housing needs federal bailout, Posted on 27 January 2010 by Angela Penny, The Guardsman, By Angela Penny, The Guardsman]
Former City College Guardian Scholar Tyrone Botelho, who is now a junior at U.C. Berkeley, speaks at a Guardian Scholar event.
Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed 2010-2011 budget includes a list of services that will be eliminated unless the state receives a $6.9 billion bailout from the federal government. According to the governor’s Web site, this includes $36 million for funding the Transitional Housing Placement Plus Program, a state program for emancipated foster youth that provides them with transitional housing after they turn 18.
Loss of this funding would have a direct negative impact on the lives of City College’s 150 to 175 Guardian Scholar students.
The City College Guardian Scholars program is a student retention service launched in January 2008. The program was developed in response to the Chaffee Educational Training Voucher initiative, a national program that provides grants to college students who have former foster youth status. A need was recognized for a program that coordinated all of the different services available to these students so that they can focus on their education.
“The Guardian Scholars program coordinates a specific set of survival services so that the students can focus on school,” said Michael McPartlin, special services manager at City College. These services include housing, scholarships, food, transportation, jobs, books, advocacy, counseling and mentoring.
In its first semester the program had 22 participants, and now it has 150 to 175 students each semester.
Tyrone Botelho was one of the first Guardian Scholars at City College and one of four who are now enrolled at UC Berkeley. “I didn’t even think of applying to Cal. I never thought they would want me. But with the support of Michael McPartlin and the Guardian Scholars Program, here I am, at my dream school. I never could have done it alone,” Botelho said.
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