Childhood Without a Home, Part 5: Aging Out of a System Should Never Mean Aging Out of Community

As I've said over and over again, there is rarely just one reason someone falls into homelessness. Housing costs, unemployment, mental health challenges, addiction, fractured relationships can all play a role.

For young people leaving foster care, many of those vulnerabilities can converge at once, often at the exact moment they're expected to make it on their own.

But research suggests that 31% to 46% of young people transitioning out of foster care experience homelessness at least once by age 26.

My friend and former City Relief colleague Malika Zlatkin has spent nearly eight years serving as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for children and young people in foster care in Bergen County, New Jersey.

Her job is to make sure a young person's voice doesn't get lost in the system. She gets to know them, works with the adults and professionals in their life, and makes recommendations to the Family Court about what they need to be safe, stable, and able to thrive.

For the last three years, Malika has also helped lead Fostering Futures, which prepares young people ages 14–21 for adulthood, particularly those at risk of leaving foster care without permanent family connections.

Think about what we expect of young adults today. They're to finish school, find a job, manage money, navigate relationships, care for their health, and somehow start building a life of their own.

Now think about the young adults in your life. How many are actually doing all of that alone?

In 2025, 58% of Americans ages 18–24 lived in their parents' home. That's not a criticism; the cost of living has exploded, and the median first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old! For many young adults, family provides a necessary safety net while they figure out what comes next.

There's a bedroom to come back to, someone to call when the car breaks down, a parent who might help with groceries or a security deposit, someone who can explain a lease, or simply say, "You screwed up. Let's figure out what to do next."

Now imagine entering adulthood without that safety net.

No financial cushion, bedroom to come home to, or parent to call when something goes wrong, and for some young people leaving foster care, they're navigating all of this while carrying years of trauma, disrupted relationships, abuse, neglect, and rejection.

I always remember Malika explaining, "The problem is that survival skills and adulthood skills are not always the same skills."

Young people who have spent years navigating instability can become remarkably resourceful. They learn to read situations, adapt quickly, solve problems, and survive circumstances most of us have never had to face.

Those are real strengths.

But those strengths were often developed for surviving instability, not necessarily for holding a job, managing money, building healthy relationships, or trusting someone enough to ask for help.

Sometimes what looks like "self-sabotage" is something more complicated. As the saying goes, the devil you know is often better than the devil you don't. When chaos is what you know, it can feel safer simply because it's familiar.

But none of this means a young person leaving foster care is destined for homelessness.

It means we have an opportunity to intervene before they do.

As Malika told me, "A young person's case may close, but their need for connection, guidance, encouragement, and belonging does not."

Or, put even more simply: Aging out of a system should never mean aging out of community.

In my next email, I'll tell you what happened when Malika brought that idea to City Relief, and about a young woman whose first day on the job took her back to a place connected to some of the deepest pain in her life.

It reminded me that preventing homelessness isn't only about housing. Sometimes it starts by helping someone discover that their past doesn't have to determine their future.

With gratitude,

Josiah Haken

City Relief, CEO