Providing shelter for foster-care teens

Sometimes a real estate project makes so much sense, it makes you forget all the mortgage-fraud cases, foreclosure-rescue schemes and shady mortgage brokers. So it is with the efforts of an Oakland affordable-housing developer to provide 20 residential units at one of its apartment buildings to teens who have aged out of the foster-care system.

When teens turn 18, they age out of the foster-care system, whether they’ve found new families to live with or not. Often, these teens have nowhere to go.

Affordable Housing Associates today announced that it has made available for these teens 20 apartment units in its Madison & 14th Street Apartments in Oakland. And not only is Affordable Housing Associates providing shelter, the group, through a partnership with First Place for Youth, will provide teens who have aged out of the foster-care system with counseling, job-hunting assistance, economic counseling and physical and mental health workshops.

Unfortunately, this will only help a small percentage of the teens who do age out of the foster-care system in the Oakland area. More than 600 Bay area teens are discharged from the foster-care system each year once they hit 18.

Perhaps more agencies with step up to help these often forgotten members of society.

For more information about Affordable Housing Associates, click here.