Thompson is serving a life sentence at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (formerly known as San Quentin State Prison). He is the founder of Back to the Start, a community-based program that works with incarcerated people to process childhood trauma and raise awareness about the need for greater investment in children and families. ” and currently serve as its facilitator.
I have been incarcerated for over twenty years. Although I am guilty of the crimes for which I was convicted, my experience in California's foster care system is a contributing factor to my incarceration. I'm not alone. Nearly one-fifth of adults in U.S. prisons were placed in foster care as children, and 70% of youth who leave foster care as legal adults are arrested by age 26. There is.
Looking back, foster care prepared me for group homes, group homes prepared me for the Department of Juvenile Services, and the Department of Juvenile Services prepared me for prison, where I am now serving a life sentence in San Quentin. You can see that everything is set up.
My foster care experience began at the age of two. By age 13, I was placed in a foster group home. I experienced physical and emotional abuse throughout my childhood, but that's when I started experiencing sexual abuse. That's when my troubles with the law began. By the time I turned 18, I had no survival skills or support and was left to fend for myself.
No child should have to go through what I went through. That's why, over the years, I've been encouraged to look at the development of some of the key services and programs currently available for youth that could have helped me. That's also why I'm so concerned and saddened by the Governor's proposed budget cuts to his three programs, which have been a lifeline to thousands of foster children and their families. Eliminating these programs would not only harm the state's most vulnerable youth, it would actually cost the state more money in the form of downstream costs. Imprisonment is just one example. In California, each incarcerated person costs the state $132,860 per year.
One of the programs being planned is the Family Urgent Response System. By providing a 24/7 crisis hotline and county in-person response teams, we provide immediate, trauma-informed support to foster youth and caregivers across the state. This allows for direct in-home services for de-escalation, stabilization and conflict resolution, as well as ongoing services to further support family stabilization.
I didn't have these services or someone I could turn to who would listen to me and connect me with resources and provide strategies to stay safe. I was so scared of my foster parents that even my teachers yelled abuse at me on a regular basis. Some nights it got really bad. I tried to run away several times, but I always came back. It was pitch black and I was so scared that I lost my head. I didn't know anyone else and had nowhere to go. This went on for years, but once I accessed services like the Family Emergency Response System and connected me with people who would listen and help me deal with my situation, I I wonder how his life would have changed.
The governor's budget also proposes eliminating housing subsidies for youth development in the Housing Navigator program and supervised independent living placements. Both programs aim to prevent foster youth from becoming homeless. The Housing Navigator Program recruits landlords, assists with security deposits, and provides rental education and additional support services to promote sustainable housing for foster youth ages 18 to 24 who receive federal housing vouchers. We support former foster parents. The Supervised Independent Living Referral Grant provides additional financial support for housing to youth from age 18 to age 21 who are in long-term foster care.
Research shows that foster youth are at high risk of homelessness and are at risk of becoming chronically homeless as adults. I remember working at McDonald's for $3.35 an hour when I was 18 and struggling on my own. I don't know how much the Supervised Independent Living Placement subsidy or Housing Navigator Program voucher would have cost in 1984 dollars, but the additional support would have cost me a minimum wage job. It would have given us the stability we needed.
I ended up putting myself in a dangerous situation, trying hard to survive, living in an area where violence was prevalent, feeling alone, and angry at the world. I believe that children in foster care and group homes become trapped in a vicious cycle after they age out of the system and return to unsafe communities, gangs, and abusive homes because they have nowhere else to go or live. I knew that. Youth leaving foster care need all the support they can to prevent homelessness, which will also prevent other tragic outcomes.
This is a critical moment to keep moving forward, not backward. Now is the time for Governor Gavin Newsom to reinstate these programs in California's 2024-25 budget. Because it is unacceptable to place young people in foster care, as I failed.
