The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Foster youth get gift of hope
Painesville home donated to One Step at a Time program to ease process of aging out
A 104-year-old house on Liberty Street in Painesville has been donated to One Step At A Time Lake County.
One Step At A Time is a nonprofit that helps young adults aging out of foster care in Lake County transition to independent self-sufficient adults by providing safe housing and a path to employment.
Members of the nonprofit’s board, through their jobs at Lake County Department of Job and Family Services, have recognized the need for foster care transitional housing for a long time, according to One Step At A Time Executive Director Kathleen Bates.
“There is no housing in Lake County designated for young adults aging out of foster care,” Bates
said. “The options are limited and too often, young adults transitioning from foster care end up homeless, victims of sex trafficking or incarcerated. Young adults are ending up homeless here in Lake County.”
The company JKLMN, LLC is covering the costs of the renovations, which are already underway since the house’s donation on Dec 2. Conor Coughlin and the Pro Desk team at Lowe’s Home Improvement in Mentor are providing the renovation crew with products and materials, Bates explained.
“The project is progressing quickly, and is about 75 percent complete,” she said. “New drywall, all new windows, interior and exterior doors and new flooring has been installed throughout the home. Next up, the team will renovate the kitchen and bathrooms with all new appliances.”
The newly acquired property will provide a safe place for four young adults to live with individualized guidance to help them stay on track with whatever career path they choose, Bates explained.
“We are working to identify an on-site resident director,” she said. Whether it is college, trade school or employment, our program manager will help give them the tools and the encouragement to succeed.
“We are asking for help from the community, local businesses and city government to help us identify funding so that we can employ a full-time program manager.”
Bates also hopes to bring in guest speakers on a monthly basis, including area professionals, entrepreneurs, and local manufacturers who are in need of skilled labor.
“We want to be able to help the young adults find employment that will allow them to become independent,” she said.
Bates said that, historically, 18-year-olds are viewed as adults, but that is based on a system from decades ago when an 18-year-old could find a decent job and earn enough money to support themselves and raise a family, which is no longer the case.
“Car insurance rates go down at the age of 25 for a reason,” she said. “Studies have shown that the teenage brain is still developing and that there is still a gap in the understanding that actions have consequences. Not until the age of 25 are humans able to make decisions based on long-term goals.”
Additionally, many individuals transitioning from foster care lack a family safety net and as a result have no one in their lives to set good examples for them, she said.
“The odds are stacked
against them for succeeding in our society, Bates said.”
According to data from the National Youth in Transition Database for Ohio, 42 percent of youth aging out of foster care finished high school or earned a GED, 36 percent had fullor part-time employment, 70 percent were on Medicaid, 28 percent experienced homelessness and 47 percent were incarcerated in the past two years.
Per the report “Sticker Shock: Calculating the Full Price Tag for Youth Incarceration” at www.justicepolicy.org, the cost of incarceration in Ohio is $554.80 per day, approximately $100,000 over six months.
“It costs taxpayers more to incarcerate a youth for six months than it costs to attend Ohio State for three years,” Bates said. “One Step At A Time Lake County will keep our residents focused on succeeding and becoming independent, productive members
of our community.
“However, we can’t do this alone,” she added. “We need the support in the form of financial support and volunteers from the community to make this happen.”
One Step at a Time will work with Torchlight Youth Mentoring Alliance to create a mentoring aspect of the program, Bates explained.
“We are just starting out so we hope to work with
“It costs taxpayers more to incarcerate a youth for six months than it costs to attend Ohio State for three years. One Step At A Time Lake County will keep our residents focused on succeeding and becoming independent, productive members of our community.” — One Step At A Time Executive Director Kathleen Bates
many area agencies such as Laketran since our residents will rely on Laketran to get to work and or school,” she said. “This is just the beginning. Once we demonstrate that our program is successful, we plan to identify more housing, whether it’s existing or new, in order to be able to house and provide services to all transitioning youth in Lake and surrounding counties.”