Ex-foster children, homeless get boost to build future
United Way program teaches young adults how to work, save and 'still have money to go out and have fun.'
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
December 5, 2007
Author: Greg Jonsson
Brand-new furniture. A flat-screen TV. An apartment in Maryland Heights, with the rent paid months in advance.
Mike Fogelbach is enjoying the fruits of his labor, and all without living paycheck to paycheck - not bad for someone who left the state foster care system in October after seven years in group homes and independent living programs.
Fogelbach, 21, has gotten what he has through his drive and work ethic but also with the help of a United Way of Greater St. Louis pilot program that aims to help teens and young adults who are homeless or aging out of the foster care system. The program teaches life skills to give them a better start at living on their own. And it offers an incentive in the form of up to $2,000 in matching funds toward a financial goal set by program participants.
"The main thing they helped me with is money management," Fogelbach said of the program. "I worked seven days a week, and I would go and spend all my money. But right now I'm ahead. I have all my bills paid. I have money in the bank, and I still have some money to go out and have fun."
The United Way program challenges participants to save up to $1,000 in what's called an Individual Development Account for things such as a down payment on a car or an apartment deposit. The money's locked away until they've attended enough classes and met all the program requirements, when the United Way matches $2 for every $1 saved by the participant.
The program allows up to 18 months to save the $1,000. Fogelbach reached that in just days. And then kept going, finally saving several thousand dollars.
"I just constantly put money in the bank," Fogelbach said. "Because I had always had a problem saving money before, as a psychological thing, I said, 'I'm going to keep putting money in there because I know I can't touch it.'"
Fogelbach's level of success isn't exactly typical, but it does illustrate the change in attitude the program aims for, said Cassandra Kaufman, director of the United Way's Community investment division.
"His whole spending habits changed totally," Kaufman said. "He was really struggling with paying his bills and staying afloat financially. He absorbed the knowledge and did an about-face."
That's important for an at-risk population that typically lacks a safety net or family to fall back on that their peers have.
The program is a partnership between the United Way, the University of Missouri Extension, which provides the classes, and four agencies that provide the participants - Youth In Need, Epworth Children and Family Services, Covenant House and Family Resource Center. About a year into the 18-month program, eight of 36 participants have met the program requirements and saved $1,000 toward their goal, and six more are very close to finishing up, Kaufman said.
The program is a pilot to see if Individual Development Account programs, which have been used to help adults in the area for years, can be used effectively to help at-risk youth.
The classes that participants attend focus on financial education, saving, credit and contracts. They teach the young adults how to set up and maintain an apartment. They even show them how to shop for and cook nutritious food on a budget.
"What I didn't know, they taught me," Fogelbach said. "They taught me everything you need to know to be on your own. They have classes on everything."
In August, he used knowledge from the classes to find his own apartment and go over the lease carefully, then used funds from the program to pay his deposit and rent through most of the year. He's still saving, but having all that paid in advance allowed him to furnish his place with his salary from stocking vending machines and from state funds he received when leaving the foster care system.
"The main thing is security," he said. "I don't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck."
Not everyone has been as successful as Fogelbach, but the United Way and the participating agencies are happy enough with the results that they plan to take on 20 more teens and young adults next year. They've learned that classes have to be participatory to keep the interest of the youths. They've helped the participants meet the class requirements despite hurdles ranging from broken-down cars to pregnancy. They've encountered more difficult challenges, such as the homeless not doing as well in the program as those in foster care, and the young women not doing as well as the young men - just the opposite of the adult program.
Overall, they hope they're doing some good with a group that faces many challenges. "It's not a silver bullet," Kaufman said. "These kids have lots of issues. But it is a nudge in the right direction."