US: Foster children deprived of benefits: How a loophole affects the most vulnerable (Includes video)
KFMB – April 07, 2024
Katrina White remembers just how determined her parents were to see her, and all her siblings, go to college. That never happened. She lost her father when she was nine years older. Then, she lost her mother, too, in 2013. After living initially with an older sister, White spent most of the next seven years in group homes throughout Southern California. She said it had never occurred to her that she would end up in foster care: “I didn’t even know what foster care was.” Ian Marks, who grew up in New Orleans, was in foster care for eight years. Anthony Jackson (known as A.J.) spent his teenage years as a ward of the state of Minnesota. Justin Kasieta, who grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, was in foster care for about three years. Each of these young people ended up in the care of the state for the worst possible reason: the death of one or both parents.