B
balanco01@yahoo.com
Guest
http://www.google.com/search?en&q=cps+abuses&btnG=Google+Search
and a story of foster system failure:
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/361FosterKids.html
Ready or Not
Crashing Hard into Adulthood
Nobody would adopt them as children. Now, at 18, the state
launches them out of foster homes into the streets, flophouses and
jails.
By PHIL WILLON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
L. A. Times, December 2, 2001
Janea Barton gyrates across the parquet with her fiery-red dyed
hair and three-inch platform shoes, thrusting her ample hip into a
spike-haired boy flapping around in a donated suit.
Around her, a crush of teenagers wiggles and wails to the depth-
charge beat, tearing up the church hall dance floor as a DJ spins the
"Thong Song" on a toasty June night.
"The Grind," Janea explains. "I taught myself. I watch a lot of
MTV." Any illusion that this is a typical high school dance is
shattered by the circle of social workers and plainclothes probation
officers clinging to the walls.
The hundred or so teens are Orange County's newest foster-care
graduates, shuttled to Irvine's Mariners Church for a daylong pep
rally before the system cuts them loose to fend for themselves.
These are the foster-care leftovers--kids who were too old and too
troubled to be adopted by parents looking for cuddly babies, but too
vulnerable to be returned to their unfit families.
Passed from relatives to foster families or institutionalized
group homes, they have ridden the system to the very end--an 18th
birthday or high school graduation. Within days, many will be on their
own.
They include kids like Janea, a former chubby-cheeked Girl Scout
who started her six years in foster care after she tried to bludgeon
her aunt with a claw hammer.
And Monique Luna, the castaway child of a heroin-addicted mother.
She became a mother herself at 15.
And Jesse Equihua, sheltered in group homes since sixth grade,
when his father put a diaper on him and paraded him around his school
as punishment for not doing homework.
At the dance, optimism reigns. Gene Howard of the Orangewood
Children's Foundation assures the teens that "things are going to open
up for you from now on."
But for many of the nation's 20,000 young people who "age out" of
foster care every year, what opens up is the floor.
About 40% fail to graduate from high school, and an equal number
wind up on welfare or other public assistance at some point. Within
two years, a third have children, usually out of wedlock, and 18%
spend time behind bars.
The darkest futures await the hardest cases: those children who
arrive on the government's doorstep as victims of unspeakable abuse
and neglect, only to be weaned into adulthood on a steady diet of
pharmaceuticals to keep them under control.
"Some of these kids don't really have a chance," said Mark
Courtney, director of the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center
for Children, one of the nation's leading experts on the topic. "If
you want to identify a high-risk group for just about any social
phenomenon, you'll have a hard time finding anyone more vulnerable
than kids aging out of foster care."
Since the mid-1980s, $1 billion has been poured into programs
nationally to prepare foster children who outgrow the system. They are
taught to shop for groceries, rent apartments, open bank accounts and
earn high school diplomas.
It's a start. All the same, they are entering the world without so
much as a driver's license, and they'll have no one to fall back on if
things go sour.
Beginning in the summer of 2000, The Times tracked Jesse, Janea
and Monique during their first year of freedom, when they faced
homelessness, violence, drugs and poverty; when the choices they made
began to define them as adults.
Orange County Juvenile Court Judge Robert B. Hutson opened their
court files--the details of abuse, neglect and violence that delivered
them into a foster care system that eventually sent them back to the
outside world.
On this summer night, they get a little coddling by the church
volunteers. The girls are being lavished with free make-overs and bags
of "Big Sexy" hair products. Before they go, each teen will collect an
Amway gift certificate and a duffel bag stuffed with such essentials
as a toaster, an electric juicer, socks, towels and a toothbrush--all
courtesy of the Orangewood Foundation.
When the dance ends about 9, white vans pull up to ferry the teens
back to foster homes for their final days.
Orangewood's Howard, who had spent weeks planning the grand send-
off, knows what lies ahead.
"The system just drops them like a hot rock."
JANEA: Summer 2000
It starts with a scramble to find a place to live, on the very day
Janea graduates from La Quinta High School in Westminster.
"My group home says I have to be out by midnight," Janea says in
the school parking lot, still wearing her cap and gown. "I'm
homeless."
She's taken in by the aunt whom Janea, as a young teenager,
attacked with a hammer--and letter opener and baseball bat.
Born March 15, 1982, at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, Janea was
given up by her mother three years later and left to the care of a
father who abused drugs.
"About 99.9% of the time, he was loaded on something. If he wasn't
drunk, he was spracked on whatever drugs he may have done," Janea says
a decade later. "Our house had no electricity, had no running water,
had no heat--had no nothing."
Only after she ran away at 7 years old, and told a patrol officer
about her father's rampant drug use, did authorities take Janea and
her little brother to live with the step-aunt in Santa Ana. Four years
would pass before Janea, during a therapy session, finally spoke of
being sexually molested by her father, an allegation he denied.
"Everyone who hears my story feels sorry for me. I'm like, why?
These rape victims, all they do is cry and boohoo about it. They make
me sick," Janea says. "It never did affect me. It's over. I'm done
with it."
Her very denial, so callous and harsh, may suggest something else.
Adolescence can dredge up deeply buried wounds in sexually abused
children. The pain can erupt in fits of rage, depression and
promiscuity--all familiar to Janea.
She entered foster care at 13 after attacking her aunt. Janea
ricocheted through a dozen institutional group homes over six years,
and made detours to Orange County Juvenile Hall and a home for
disturbed girls in Provo, Utah.
A habitual runaway, Janea was declared unadoptable even before she
bit a social worker at 16. Her therapy included pills for aggression,
depression, anxiety and mood swings.
The foster care system, the parent-of-last-resort for an estimated
500,000 children in America, is funded by federal, state and local
governments and, in California, is run by county social services
agencies.
The ultimate goal is to reunite children with their parents,
provided a judge rules they're fit to raise a child.
But many children never go home. Some are placed with relatives or
foster families. A lucky few are adopted. Many of the troubled
children wind up in group homes that range from secure "residential
treatment" institutions to small homes with six to eight children and
a 24-hour staff.
Foster parents receive a monthly stipend from the state of $405 to
$569. Institutions collect up to $5,732. Some children stay in the
system for just a few weeks. Others, like Janea, stay for years.
"I was a placement child," she said. "I didn't have anywhere to
go. I wasn't going to a foster home. I was there until I was 18."
Now that Janea has graduated from foster care, she is about to
discover life without medication--by choice.
By the Fourth of July, 14 days out of her group home, Janea is
working at a Wal-Mart part time. She earns a few dimes above minimum
wage and has no benefits. Janea's aunt is letting her sleep on the
living room floor.
"I've got to get out of there," Janea mutters. "Sammy and me want
our own place."
Sammy is Sam Lopez. He left foster care months earlier and sleeps
on a bare mattress in a mobile home a block away. He is 19, weighs 300
pounds and still wets the bed.
On July 11, Janea breaks the news to her former social worker:
"You'll never guess. I'm getting married!" One hour and $101.50 in
court fees later, Janea and Sam are standing at the altar in the
Orange County Marriage License Office.
By 6 p.m., they are back at her aunt's apartment eating tacos.
When night falls, Sam leaves for his trailer. Janea heads upstairs
alone.
Janea insists she and Sam love each other. She says he lost his
temper and pushed her once, and punched out a plexiglass window a
while back, but he never hits her. When Janea revealed she was
molested as a girl, Sam was very understanding, she says. Not once has
he pressured her into having sex.
A week after their wedding night, the newlyweds are in a $25 room
at the Alhambra Motel near Cal State Los Angeles. The police had
chased Sam out of Santa Ana when he refused to pay rent, and Janea and
her aunt had had one argument too many.
A ****roach skitters across the carpet toward a wadded napkin
stained with pizza sauce. Janea and Sam watch from the comfort of
their twin bed, arguing over who should fling a shoe at the intruder.
"This place is OK--for right this second," Janea says.
MONIQUE: Summer 2000
Inside a tiny bedroom with no closets, Monique Luna plunks down
her duffel bags and steps to her new bedroom window.
Monique has found housing at Stepping Stones, a new halfway house
in Fullerton for young mothers who need help breaking into adulthood.
She has a 2-year-old daughter and a few hundred bucks in the bank.
Lyla wanders in and nestles up to her 17-year-old mom, complaining
about stains on her bed. Monique offers a motherly Hmmm. The blanket
can be cleaned. All that matters now is that they finally have a
little privacy, a phone, the freedom to come and go.
Jim Carson, who runs the program, dangles the keys.
"You have a key chain, Monique?" Carson asks.
Her eyes widen. Monique had always lived in places where others
were in charge.
"Nope. I've never had a key chain."
Monique and her older sister were raised by churchgoing
grandparents in Stanton, where their mother had left them as toddlers.
The older couple provided a loving home but not the vigilance to
protect the girls from the world outside.
"I drank beer when I was 11 1/2. When I was 13, I did speed,"
Monique remembers. "When I first had sexual intercourse I was, I
think, 11 1/2 or 12. It was weird. I didn't even like it."
At 14, she was pregnant. Her grandmother, the one person she
counted on for help, died a month after Lyla's birth. Her grandfather
had died two years earlier. Monique dropped out of high school and
worked full time at a local department store. She rented a room from a
friend for months before a neighbor reported her and her baby to the
Orange County Social Services Agency.
Determined to keep custody of Lyla, she convinced the agency to
appoint her boyfriend's mother as her foster parent. Monique legally
became the foster sister of the boy who had impregnated her. Once
again, she found refuge with a caring family. And once again, it
didn't last.
Monique and her daughter's stay ended abruptly seven months later
after she got in a fistfight with Lyla's father. When police arrived,
they found Monique's face covered in blood.
County social workers moved Monique and her daughter to Crittenton
Services for Children and Families, a nonprofit foster care group home
in Fullerton. Next door is Stepping Stones, the agency's halfway house
for teen mothers who are emancipated. It becomes Monique and Lyla's
first stop after foster care.
Days after moving into Stepping Stones, Monique starts scouring
north Orange County for day care. The program provides free care for
at least a month at the Crittenton Services facility next door, but
Lyla is having problems with the other kids. Monique is afraid she'll
be kicked out.
"She's a pincher. My daughter's a pincher."
By mid-July, Monique is working 36 hours a week as a nursing
assistant at Western Medical Center-Anaheim, waking up at 5:30 a.m. to
catch the bus. Each night, after arriving home in hospital scrubs, she
cradles Lyla in her arms to read "Winnie the Pooh."
JESSE: Summer 2000
The same week that Monique moves into Stepping Stones, Jesse
Equihua and his girlfriend cart his belongings to Rising Tide in
Tustin. It's a cluster of apartments for kids leaving foster care and
is complete with cheap rent, job assistance and a resident advisor.
The transitional housing program is run by the Orangewood Children's
Foundation, the private group with close ties to the county Social
Services Agency.
Most of Jesse's adolescence was spent bouncing among institutional
homes in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties. While in the
system, Jesse rarely saw his mother, who eventually moved to Guam
after getting remarried. His father promised to visit often, but
rarely followed through.
"I will never turn out like my dad," Jesse says. "He wasn't even
really a father to me."
Within days of arriving at Rising Tide, Jesse is sleeping until
noon and wailing away on his Fender Squire bass guitar until 3 a.m.
His full-time job is hanging out at the pool, skateboarding and
cranking up his boombox.
"Last night I got a full body massage by one of the girls," Jesse
laughs.
A week later, Jesse is up at 4 a.m. tripping on LSD and
videotaping two sleeping roommates: "Look at the white guy! He's on
film!"
Until now, social workers had told Jesse when to get up, when to
go to bed, what he could watch on TV, what posters could be tacked to
his walls.
"I'm not sweating it," Jesse says. "I've got $500 in the bank. So
if I'm jobless for a month, that's OK."
JANEA: Midsummer 2000
Leery eyes blink from the dark hollows of Los Angeles Street on
July 25, where nightfall turns downtown sidewalks into a concrete
encampment of cardboard boxes.
Janea and Sam wade through the stench of urine and sweat, trying
to avoid eye contact with the homeless settling in on skid row. A man
relieves himself in a doorway, caring little about the two teens
walking nearby.
"This is only for one night, OK?" Sam whispers. "You understand?"
"I understand," Janea says. "It's just that I've never seen
anything like this before. You don't see this in Orange County."
That afternoon, they had been in an Alhambra motel room with
dreams of going to Fresno to live with Janea's mother. Many foster
kids harbor fantasies that they were victims of a big mistake, and
that the parents who mistreated them are longing to make amends.
Janea's fantasy evaporates with a collect call. Mom hung up on me,
Janea says.
With no car and less than $5 between them, Janea and Sam take the
483 bus to downtown L.A., hoping to find beds at the Union Rescue
Mission. It's the only shelter in the area that isn't full.
Janea might have been able to avoid this. Before leaving her
foster care group home in Westminster, she was encouraged to apply for
transitional housing--including the program that Jesse entered. But
Janea yearned to be on her own--and left alone. Janea hated the
system, and transitional housing is still the system.
Even if Janea did apply, the odds were against her. On average,
about 200 children age out of foster care every year in Orange County.
There are spaces for fewer than 50 in transitional housing programs.
So for most, the very system that rescued them as children does not
hesitate to cast them out on their own once they become adults.
"We can take her," a woman at the Union Rescue Mission says,
indicating there is no room for Sam.
Sam's only option is a plastic chair in the mission chapel, a
cavernous room that echoes with the snores of hundreds of men. The air
burns with a suffocating stink. The lights stay on all night.
The next morning, in the predawn darkness, the streets seem less
menacing. The tremor in Janea's voice is gone. The young couple board
a bus toward East Olympic Boulevard and South Soto Street, to the
nearest welfare office.
By 10 a.m., they have a two-week voucher for the Royal Knights
Motel in East L.A., $34 in bus tokens, $8.50 in cash and more than
$200 in food stamps. By nightfall, their grim, gang-graffitied motel
room is littered with Chips Ahoy, Chee-tos and other junk food.
Instead of looking for work, Sam and Janea hang out at a taco
stand across the street or lie in bed watching TV.
When the food stamps run out in early August, Janea hocks her
engagement ring for $20 to buy a pizza. It's a baffling sacrifice,
considering that she is well aware that their next monthly check is
waiting at the welfare office 20 minutes away.
Their best hope, it's decided one Thursday morning, is to sell
Roscoe, the malnourished, flea-infested Rottweiler puppy they found
three days earlier. That'll bring in $300 easily, Sam says.
They pace in front of a 7-Eleven with a crude cardboard sign: "For
Sale Baby Rottweiler, Full Blooded." After four hours in the baking
heat, Janea gives up and heads back to the motel. Sam insists on
staying and hurls profanities when he's left behind.
Five minutes later, Sam runs up, huffing and puffing. He grabs
Janea's shoulder and spins her around. They talk, then argue, then
shove. Sam ****s his fist and punches Janea's face. Her screams begin
before the blood has time to trickle down her chin.
"Somebody call the police! Call 911.... Help me! ... Help me!"
Sam, afraid, drops to his knees sobbing. He locks his arms around
Janea's waist and begs her to stop shrieking. After he is pulled off,
Janea sprints down the alley--with Sam right behind.
She is shaking with rage when the squad cars pull up. A bright red
bruise wells under her right eye as she fingers the jagged edge of her
chipped front tooth. Within half an hour, Sam is hauled off to jail.
Janea drifts down Whittier Boulevard, then stops near a storefront
ministry. She sits, tilting her face toward the setting sun, and says
nothing for the longest time.
"I feel that if I stay with him, I'm just like my mother. My dad
hit her," Janea finally says. "Deserved it, though."
MONIQUE: Late summer 2000
For Monique, Stepping Stones seemed like a good fit at first. But
a month past her 18th birthday in late July, the house rules are
gnawing at her.
The program forbids visitors and has a zero-tolerance policy on
drugs and alcohol. Residents are required to work or attend college or
a trade school. They must be home at a reasonable hour, and the
kitchen must be kept clean.
Monique tries hard. But she is also a rebellious teenager.
She spends many nights out with her friends--always with Lyla in
tow. A 2-year-old needs a schedule and a stable home life, Stepping
Stones administrator Jim Carson tells her. He lays out a daily
itinerary: mealtimes, nap times, playtimes, bedtimes. Straighten up or
you're gone, Carson warns.
But every day, Monique sees other 18-year-olds frittering away the
summer, swarming the malls, spending weekends at the beach, while her
life is consumed by a job and a temperamental 2-year-old. Money's
tight, and in a month she'll have to start paying for Lyla's day care.
She already depends on food-bank donations. Her plans to pursue a
registered nursing degree have been put on hold.
"It's sad, but I feel old. But then I think, Oh my God, I'm 18. I
can't be a little kid anymore," Monique says. "[Lyla] doesn't deserve
to have a mom like me.... She deserves a better dad."
Lyla's father is 18-year-old Richard Molina, a Stanton
construction worker. When he found out she was dating another guy, she
said, he threatened to snatch Lyla in the middle of the night. Later,
when she sought a restraining order against Molina, she said only that
he threatened to take Lyla by getting an attorney.
Monique's new boyfriend, who is on probation, adds to the stress.
He wants to get married.
"Too much drama," the teen mother sighs.
And it never seems to end. A few mornings later, Monique gets a
phone call at work: Pick up your daughter at day care--she has lice.
JESSE: Late summer 2000
Life is a lot less complicated for Jesse. After 1 1/2 months at
Rising Tide, he's still sleeping until noon, hanging out at the pool
and partying past 3 a.m. And he's flat broke. His $500 in savings went
to rent--$200 a month--cigarettes and Taco Bell. The power has already
been cut off once, and the phone might be next.
"Come on, we're just kids," Jesse says. "We're emancipated youth
from group homes; we never had a chance to go get drunk. So we go take
advantage on our own."
Paul Bernard, head of Rising Tide, has seen enough. He places
Jesse on probation, banning him from the apartment complex during
daytime, when he should be out looking for a job. If Jesse isn't
working in two weeks, he'll be packing his bags.
By Aug. 9, Jesse is wearing a bow tie and tearing tickets at the
Edwards Cinema in the Tustin Market Place. He landed the job after
Bernard pulled him out of bed one morning and drove him to the theater
to apply. One of the movie chain's executives is on the board of
directors that runs Rising Tide.
"I'm getting just above minimum wage, $5.75 an hour," Jesse says
as he sweeps up popcorn. "Hopefully, within a couple months, I'll be
an assistant manager."
JANEA: Late summer 2000
Bundled in a hooded sweatshirt and a grass-stained Army blanket,
Janea snuggles closer to her friends for protection against the
midnight chill and the junkies camped beneath the trees.
A two-foot steel pipe lies beside her, for use in case her cache
of empty beer bottles attracts a crowd. If they disappear, no one eats
tomorrow.
Janea settles in for another night's sleep in East L.A.'s
Belvedere Park to be close to Sam, who's sitting in a warm jail cell a
block away.
"Oh Jesus," Janea sighs. "I can't wait to get into a warm, comfy
bed. Jail is a breeze compared to this. They've got TVs."
The hum of the Pomona Freeway eventually lulls her to sleep.
The day after Sam hit her, Janea arrived at the park pushing a
shopping cart. Her friend Dianna came with her, along with Dianna's 17-
year-old boyfriend Matt. A runaway from a foster home in Los Angeles,
Matt suggested Belvedere Park, a few grassy acres wedged between East
L.A.'s Municipal Court, the freeway and a sheriff's station. Police
helicopters land 50 yards from where they sleep, descending from the
night sky in flurries of dancing lights. No one would dare attack them
here.
The three adjust to their new home with amazing ease, living off
handouts and recyclable bottles and cans. They commandeer the park's
putrid restroom, holding their noses as they take baths in the
stainless-steel sinks. Janea even gets her hands on her favorite brand
of red hair dye. The nearby branch library offers air-conditioned
respite, with free Internet access.
The environs prove too harsh for Roscoe the pup, however. After a
few days at the park, Janea gives him to a couple at a nearby
McDonald's.
"He needed a good home. His lip was puffed up and he looked sick,"
Janea says. "We all agree that when we get a house with a yard, we'll
go to the pound and get a baby Rott."
After 10 days, they break camp when Sam strikes a deal with the
district attorney. Sam is sentenced to 10 days in jail--which he has
already served--plus three years' probation, $300 in fines and a year
of domestic violence counseling.
"Today is almost as good as my wedding day," Janea exclaims after
the Aug. 21 hearing. "I don't have to be by myself anymore."
"Sam!" she screams across the courtyard when he staggers out of
jail, head shaved and looking angry. They talk quietly for a few
minutes, then he plants a gentle kiss. All is forgiven.
JESSE: Early fall 2000
Jesse keeps reporting to work, and the paychecks keep rolling in.
The fridge is full of pizza and frozen burritos.
Jesse's closest friend, Johnny Gardea, hasn't done as well. With
no steady job and no money for rent, Johnny has been ordered out by
Sept. 10.
On Sept. 2, to kick off Johnny's farewell weekend, he and Jesse
make a doughnut run to Krispy Kreme. Jesse is doing his best to cheer
up his "brother," as he calls him. Back inside Johnny's apartment,
Jesse breaks out a bottle of Captain Morgan's rum. Johnny breaks out
two pellet guns, and they head to the back-bedroom window.
The first shot shatters the odometer in Shawn Rainwater's Ford
Mustang, then three more strafe his trunk--POP! POP! POP! Seconds
later, a shot rips into Sergio Baigorria's stomach, and two others
sting Gaspar Paz's back as he holds his 15-month-old son.
Jesse swears he fired only one shot "at a leaf." Johnny was the
one aiming at people, Jesse says.
As sirens approach, the two hustle to Jesse's apartment and stash
the guns under a mattress. Minutes later, a police bullhorn orders
them outside.
The two wounded victims are taken to the hospital, where their
medical bills eventually reach $15,000. Jesse and Johnny are charged
with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and bail is set at
$50,000 apiece. They face six years in prison.
"They admitted shooting out the window," says Lt. Bill Fisher of
the Tustin Police Department. "You start shooting people, it doesn't
matter what it's with."
At Orange County Jail, Jesse is dressed in a ragged orange
jumpsuit and sneakers without shoelaces. Deputies put him on suicide
watch the day he arrives.
"I'm lost and lonely in here, man," Jesse says, wiping away tears.
On Sept. 16, Jesse's 19th birthday, his only visitor is a
reporter. That night, jail doctors put him on Paxil, the
antidepressant he was given in foster care. Jesse won't eat.
"It's like my other two birthdays in Juvenile Hall," he mumbles.
Other Tustin police officers later testify that Johnny was the one
who admitted shooting the rifle, saying he was trying to "get a rise"
out of the people in the alley. Still, Johnny is the one who gets
bailed out. Dwayne Brigham, Johnny's volunteer mentor while he was in
foster care, forked over $5,000 for a bail bond.
Jesse doesn't know anyone with that kind of money. So he sits in
his cell at Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, awaiting trial.
MONIQUE: Early fall 2000
A few miles away, Monique spends most of her shift at Western
Medical Center changing bedpans and taking patients' vital signs.
"I really want to be an E.R. nurse," she says. "My job isn't very
glamorous. I clean up yucky stuff."
In Room 202, an older woman woozy on Demerol has soiled herself in
bed. After changing the sheets, Monique scurries down the hall to the
supply closet and grabs a pack of wipes, warming them in the
microwave.
"Let me help you," Monique says, gently cleaning the woman before
helping her into a fresh bed.
Certified nursing assistants are among the lowest-paid employees
in the hospital. Monique works three 12-hour shifts a week, earning $8
an hour and volunteering for overtime when she can.
In foster care, Monique's counselors told her she was a "natural"
when it came to nursing, saying her desire to nurture is a response to
not receiving nurturing as a child.
Monique laughs. They were always trying to psychoanalyze her. Not
that Monique doesn't have problems. Just ask her.
"I have abandonment issues," she says. "It's not only because my
mom left me, but because my grandpa died, my grandma died, and my
sister's not around. I'm basically by myself."
For Monique, her father exists in name only--Lorenzo Ramirez Luna.
He fled to Mexico after she was born, which she thinks explains her
need for constant male companionship: "I want to have a guy around all
the time.... I've always had a boyfriend, even if it was somebody
stupid."
JANEA: Early fall 2000
Throughout September, Janea and Sam skip between homeless shelters
and seedy motels on Beach Boulevard in Anaheim and Buena Park. Some
nights they double up with other homeless families, stuffing 10 people
into a motel room.
Some days, Janea crawls out of bed at 4 a.m. and takes a bus to
Fullerton to sign up for work at a day-labor firm. Her jobs vary from
day to day: security guard at an Anaheim car auction; packaging cell
phones in Fullerton; working with sheet metal at an Irvine machine
shop. On good days Janea pockets $50 or more, but it rarely lasts
until morning. When she has the cash, Janea and Sam usually wind up in
a soft motel bed.
When Janea is too tired to work, they stay at the First Southern
Baptist Church of Buena Park. Unlike other shelters, the church lets
the needy stay as long as they want. There is room on the floor to
sleep and donated food to eat.
Until now, Janea and Sam dabbled in petty crimes mainly as a
matter of survival. Janea wrote hundreds of dollars' worth of bad
checks over the summer to buy clothes, blankets, food and medicine--
stopping only when stores started rejecting the worthless paper. In
the fall, the couple begin shoplifting--stealing shoes from Wal-Mart
or raiding a supermarket for toothpaste, tampons and candy bars.
In late October, when the stench from Sam's Nikes becomes too much
to stomach, the two know exactly what to do.
"We went to Wal-Mart and jacked him some tennis shoes," Janea says
one Thursday afternoon.
One day after work, Janea says, she and another shelter friend
pooled their cash to buy a few rocks of crack cocaine for $50--hoping
to peddle it on the street and double their money. By the end of the
night, Janea's partner found another way to dispose of it.
"He smoked it all. That was so stupid," Janea says, cursing
herself.
In November, she says, they hooked up with an ex-con at Orange
Coast Interfaith Shelter in Costa Mesa. The ex-con used a screwdriver
to bust into a white minivan, and off they went to visit his family in
El Monte. They returned in a nice, brown 1979 Cadillac coupe she says
they stole at Brea Mall.
"We were having so much fun," Janea says. "I wasn't stressing. I
was like, who cares? Let me go to jail."
MONIQUE: Fall 2000
With Lyla starting day care in Garden Grove, the toddler's
grandmother volunteers as chauffeur, pulling up at 6:30 a.m. each
workday. Monique's boyfriend or cousin usually gives her a ride home
from the hospital, and they pick up Lyla on the way.
But rarely, if ever, is Lyla in a car seat. That bothers Carson of
Stepping Stones. For months, he has pestered Monique about endangering
her daughter's life and flouting the law.
A week before Halloween, the walls come crashing down. After
Lyla's grandmother drives up to take her to day care, a shouting match
erupts when Carson sees Monique putting Lyla in the car without a
child-safety seat. Carson threatens to report her for child abuse.
Monique relents, and grabs a car seat stashed in her room.
But for Carson, it's the last straw. He calls Monique into his
office and tells her: You're out.
"There are some rules that are hard and fast," Carson says
afterward, explaining that child endangerment tops the list. "It has
nothing to do with Monique loving her child," he said, adding that she
can stay until she finds another place.
Monique knows it was a serious lapse: "But a car seat?" she says,
indignant--and worried that the incident may endanger her custody of
Lyla, which is still being monitored by the courts.
For two weeks, Monique searches central Orange County for an
apartment. She pays $220 a month at Stepping Stones--and now can't
find anything cheaper than $700.
"Depression! Depression! I have to move," Monique whines to her
friends as they party one Friday night. "Did I tell you what they told
me? I could stay at a homeless shelter!"
But the longer she stays at Stepping Stones looking for a new
home, the more stressed she becomes.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Monique and another young mother
are rolling on the floor, throwing punches and pulling hair.
"She was telling me I was a bad mom and I didn't treat my daughter
right," Monique says.
That night, Monique shows up at her aunt's front door in Stanton,
holding Lyla and a suitcase full of clothes.
JESSE: Fall 2000
Behind bars for just 1 1/2 months, Jesse already has the shaved
head of a hard-timer and has mastered all the cellblock lingo.
Jesse is the youngest guy in his unit, F-East, and he's been
"hanging with the woods"--the white inmates. You have to pick a side,
he explains--whites, Latinos, blacks or Asians--and Jesse decided long
ago to reject the Latino label. His father was a descendant of the
Tarascan tribe of Mexico and Arizona.
That has caused him problems with Latino inmates. Jesse was
attacked the day he arrived at Theo Lacy, but escaped injury when
guards intervened.
"It's all politics in here, man."
The week before Thanksgiving, Jesse and Johnny plead guilty to
identical charges, three felony counts of assault with a deadly
weapon. As part of the plea deal, the judge agrees to consider
reducing the charges to misdemeanors if a pre-sentencing investigation
finds they have no previous criminal record or history of violence.
Sentencing is set for Jan. 5, giving Jesse 1 1/2 months to sit in
jail and worry through the holidays. Jesse's mood vacillates between
helplessness and grim acceptance. On visiting days, he stays under the
sheets, knowing the guards will never call his name. He searches for
glimmers of hope amid the mindless daily routines, as he reveals in a
Thanksgiving Day letter to a reporter:
"Well today it's turkey day and I'm stuck in heer. Man! If I was
out there I would probobly be havin' a smoke, or skating or havin' a
barbeque or some thing. But here I am writing you guys, sipin' on some
coffee and watching out for myself.... This is OK-4-now...."
By December, jail doctors have Jesse on the antidepressants
Trazodone and Paxil. He spends most of his time sleeping and has begun
going to chapel whenever he can--both the Roman Catholic and
Protestant services. Jesse convinces himself the judge will spring him
in January, even though his attorney makes no promises.
"I miss my earrings and I miss my cigarettes," he says in early
December. "I miss my music, radio, my CDs, my bass, my Boogie Board. I
miss my skateboard. I miss being a kid."
JANEA: Winter 2000-01
Janea is tired. She's tired of being poor. She's tired of
supporting Sam. She's tired of spending night after night on the hard
floor of the church in Buena Park.
"I hate being in a shelter, not having the proper things," Janea
says. "I hate not being able to come home, throw my keys on the table--
have a table to throw keys on."
On Christmas morning, Janea wakes up inside another dingy room in
another seedy Anaheim motel and decides she's had enough. Sam's
history. She'll file for an annulment. She'll move back with her aunt
in Santa Ana. She's starting over.
Early the next morning, as Sam sleeps, Janea slips out of their
room without saying goodbye.
"I think I made the right choice," Janea says. "He can go out and
do something with his life--get a job."
Within a month, Janea and Sam are cuddled on a bed in Buena Park's
Gas Lamp Motel. Janea's new life with her aunt crumbled after a few
weeks.
In the end, Janea says, she had nowhere else to turn.
JESSE: Winter 2000-01
On a cold, rainy Friday in January, Jesse steps out of the
brightly lit lobby of Theo Lacy Jail wearing a white T-shirt, baggy
shorts and flip-flops. And an exhausted smile.
"I'm free," he says softly, closing his eyes as raindrops wash
over him.
That morning, the charges against him were reduced to three
misdemeanors, and he was released after 126 days in jail.
"I've got a friend who's going to help me out," Jesse says. A
fellow inmate, jailed for drunk driving, had talked his wife into
renting Jesse a spare bedroom in their Mission Viejo home. She has a
job waiting for him. Jesse's going to be a telemarketer.
About 8 p.m., a gleaming white Jeep Grand Cherokee pulls into the
parking lot, and a slender blond woman saunters over to Jesse.
"Hi, I'm Suzanne."
Minutes later, the Jeep's doors slam shut. Jesse disappears into
traffic.
MONIQUE: Winter 2000-01
Monique's entire life, including her successes and failures as a
mother, are reduced to a stack of reports piled before Juvenile Court
Commissioner Gary L. Vincent for a custody hearing 11 days before
Christmas.
Monique and Richard, Lyla's father, sit silently. Richard casts an
unsettling presence, with a pierced eyebrow, shaved head and a "Lyla"
tattoo scrawled across the back of his neck.
For 20 minutes, Monique's lawyer praises her client's promising
nursing career and college plans.
The judge agrees.
"You don't expect to see that kind of maturity from someone 18,"
Vincent says. "We have a result here that's about as positive as you
can get."
Monique wins sole custody of Lyla, with strings. A social worker
is to check on them for six months.
On Jan. 4, Monique and Lyla walk into their new home at the
Emerald Gardens Apartments in Buena Park--an apartment subsidized by
the Orange County Housing Authority.
The only pieces of furniture are two donated beds and Lyla's
kiddie table. Except for a bottle of juice, the fridge is bare.
"I have my own room. My daughter has her own room," Monique says,
smiling. "I have my own kitchen, and I don't want to wash the dishes
every time I use them. I can just leave them there."
Monique is home.
EPILOGUE: Summer 2001
More than a year has passed since Jesse, Monique and Janea were
sent into adulthood with a handshake and a duffel bag stuffed with
socks and a toaster.
In that time, another 2,300 children "aged out" of foster care in
California. Some will wind up sleeping in homeless shelters, getting
pregnant or landing in jail. Others will find a steady job or head to
college--working hard and finding ways to persevere.
To improve the odds for all emancipated foster youths, Congress in
1999 approved the Foster Care Independence Act, setting aside $140
million a year to help young adults make the transition to self-
sufficiency--doubling federal funding over previous efforts.
Still, the increased funding doesn't help much. In California,
only about 10% are expected to receive assistance, said Sylvia
Pizzini, deputy director of the state's Children and Family Services
Division. There simply is not enough to go around.
This year, Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento vowed to make
California's troubled foster care system--and emancipated foster kids--
a legislative priority, introducing a $300-million package of reforms
during a flashy press conference in April.
By July, the proposed funding had been whittled to $19 million--
thanks, in part, to the money spent during the state's energy crisis.
The Orange County Social Services Agency, which a 2000 grand jury
criticized for abdicating responsibility for emancipated foster
children, has announced plans to hire 12 "coaches" to guide the youths
through the services available to them.
Still, some welfare experts say there's no telling what these
efforts will accomplish. No one really knows what programs are the
most effective for these kids, or what amount of funding is really
needed.
Jesse, for instance, had transitional housing, job assistance and
independent living classes. Yet three months into freedom, he was in
jail.
On his own for months now, Jesse still struggles. After a month or
so of living with Suzanne and working for minimum wage at her Mission
Viejo mortgage company, he packed his bags and moved in with a friend
a few miles away. Six weeks later, he moved in with a girlfriend and
her mother--sleeping on the couch.
After flirting with employment at Jamba Juice and losing out on a
job at Stater Bros. because of his criminal record, Jesse finally
finds work: pouring lattes at a neighborhood Starbucks.
A chunk of every paycheck goes to paying the nearly $6,000 in
court-imposed fines Jesse owes--mostly to reimburse the victims for
their medical bills. Almost everything else is gobbled up by rent,
groceries and other necessities.
"It's such a drag. I can't save anything," Jesse says one
September afternoon, slurping a lemonade at the Laguna Hills Mall food
court.
It could be worse, he says. His probation officer and the prospect
of drug tests keep him in line--working steady and no partying. Plus,
a few weeks shy of his 20th birthday, Jesse got his driver's license.
"Now that was sweet," he says.
Monique has managed to piece together a relatively normal life in
Buena Park. She's taking nursing classes at Cypress College--starting
the slow process of working for her registered nursing degree.
Even when she lost her job at Western Medical Center in May, in
part for missing too many days of work to go to school and care for
Lyla, Monique bounced back. She landed a higher-paying job with a
local nursing registry--which gives her flexible hours, and allows her
to go to school and care for Lyla.
But her final ascension into adulthood, and as a mother, remains
elusive.
After all she had accomplished in the past year, Monique walked
into Orange County Family Court on June 4 expecting to win full,
unfettered custody of Lyla.
She walked out sullen, dejected, almost in tears. Lyla was to
remain a ward of the court for a few more months--at the very least.
"I was ready for it to be over," Monique says.
But it's far from over. In late August, Monique reveals that she's
seven months pregnant. Just like her first pregnancy, when she was 14,
Monique found a way to keep it a secret from everyone but her closest
friends. Her bulging belly makes that impossible now.
It happened in February, she says sheepishly, when she briefly got
back together with Richard--her old boyfriend and Lyla's father.
Richard held her hand when the baby girl was born on Oct. 24.
Monique cradles the newborn Brianna in her arms a month later as
she sits in Family Court, waiting to hear if she'll finally win full
custody of Lyla. This time, she leaves smiling.
"I want to thank you for being an example of how difficult
circumstances can be overcome," said presiding court Commissioner
Vincent, after declaring Lyla was no longer a ward of the court.
"You're young, but you don't act like it. We wish you well."
Janea's prospects remain much dimmer. After months of sleeping on
floors and jumping from job to job in the spring, she discovers she's
pregnant.
In April, she and Sam board a Greyhound bus--armed with $30 and
two one-way tickets to Las Vegas. Vegas would give them a clean slate,
a place they can start over and do it right this time.
After spending a week at a homeless shelter, the couple are
recruited by a local ministry that requires them to beg for donations
on street corners and outside supermarkets.
By late June, they are back in Southern California, living in the
ministry's offices in South-Central L.A. Now almost six months
pregnant, Janea is shuttled to a Rite Aid in Burbank three times a
week to hit up shoppers for spare change. Thirty percent goes in her
pocket; the rest goes to the ministry.
"They tell me I'm having a girl. She's healthy as a horse," Janea
says. "I hope so. I'll tell ya, I'm worried about this kid."
By November, Janea and Sam are back on welfare and living in a
subsidized apartment in Buena Park. After quitting his job as a
supermarket security guard, Sam spent nearly half his final paycheck
of $300 on a new cell phone. He now works as a janitor at Knott's
Berry Farm.
Janea's labor pains begin Nov. 20. Leilanie Lopez arrives the
morning of Nov. 21, weighing in at more than 8 pounds.
"Thank God that's over," Janea mutters.
The day Janea comes home, one of the first calls she makes is to
the local welfare office--to ask for vouchers for milk and food.
Those who work with the foster care children see an inevitability
to their lives--an intractable cycle of addiction, abuse and
indifference that is tough to break, regardless of government
programs.
"Remember who we're talking about here," said Carson of Stepping
Stones, the transitional housing program in Fullerton that caters to
teen mothers. The kids he sees year after year "have been beaten,
abused and raped--many times by their own parents. That's normal life
to them.
"These are damaged kids."
Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times
and a story of foster system failure:
http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/361FosterKids.html
Ready or Not
Crashing Hard into Adulthood
Nobody would adopt them as children. Now, at 18, the state
launches them out of foster homes into the streets, flophouses and
jails.
By PHIL WILLON, TIMES STAFF WRITER
L. A. Times, December 2, 2001
Janea Barton gyrates across the parquet with her fiery-red dyed
hair and three-inch platform shoes, thrusting her ample hip into a
spike-haired boy flapping around in a donated suit.
Around her, a crush of teenagers wiggles and wails to the depth-
charge beat, tearing up the church hall dance floor as a DJ spins the
"Thong Song" on a toasty June night.
"The Grind," Janea explains. "I taught myself. I watch a lot of
MTV." Any illusion that this is a typical high school dance is
shattered by the circle of social workers and plainclothes probation
officers clinging to the walls.
The hundred or so teens are Orange County's newest foster-care
graduates, shuttled to Irvine's Mariners Church for a daylong pep
rally before the system cuts them loose to fend for themselves.
These are the foster-care leftovers--kids who were too old and too
troubled to be adopted by parents looking for cuddly babies, but too
vulnerable to be returned to their unfit families.
Passed from relatives to foster families or institutionalized
group homes, they have ridden the system to the very end--an 18th
birthday or high school graduation. Within days, many will be on their
own.
They include kids like Janea, a former chubby-cheeked Girl Scout
who started her six years in foster care after she tried to bludgeon
her aunt with a claw hammer.
And Monique Luna, the castaway child of a heroin-addicted mother.
She became a mother herself at 15.
And Jesse Equihua, sheltered in group homes since sixth grade,
when his father put a diaper on him and paraded him around his school
as punishment for not doing homework.
At the dance, optimism reigns. Gene Howard of the Orangewood
Children's Foundation assures the teens that "things are going to open
up for you from now on."
But for many of the nation's 20,000 young people who "age out" of
foster care every year, what opens up is the floor.
About 40% fail to graduate from high school, and an equal number
wind up on welfare or other public assistance at some point. Within
two years, a third have children, usually out of wedlock, and 18%
spend time behind bars.
The darkest futures await the hardest cases: those children who
arrive on the government's doorstep as victims of unspeakable abuse
and neglect, only to be weaned into adulthood on a steady diet of
pharmaceuticals to keep them under control.
"Some of these kids don't really have a chance," said Mark
Courtney, director of the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center
for Children, one of the nation's leading experts on the topic. "If
you want to identify a high-risk group for just about any social
phenomenon, you'll have a hard time finding anyone more vulnerable
than kids aging out of foster care."
Since the mid-1980s, $1 billion has been poured into programs
nationally to prepare foster children who outgrow the system. They are
taught to shop for groceries, rent apartments, open bank accounts and
earn high school diplomas.
It's a start. All the same, they are entering the world without so
much as a driver's license, and they'll have no one to fall back on if
things go sour.
Beginning in the summer of 2000, The Times tracked Jesse, Janea
and Monique during their first year of freedom, when they faced
homelessness, violence, drugs and poverty; when the choices they made
began to define them as adults.
Orange County Juvenile Court Judge Robert B. Hutson opened their
court files--the details of abuse, neglect and violence that delivered
them into a foster care system that eventually sent them back to the
outside world.
On this summer night, they get a little coddling by the church
volunteers. The girls are being lavished with free make-overs and bags
of "Big Sexy" hair products. Before they go, each teen will collect an
Amway gift certificate and a duffel bag stuffed with such essentials
as a toaster, an electric juicer, socks, towels and a toothbrush--all
courtesy of the Orangewood Foundation.
When the dance ends about 9, white vans pull up to ferry the teens
back to foster homes for their final days.
Orangewood's Howard, who had spent weeks planning the grand send-
off, knows what lies ahead.
"The system just drops them like a hot rock."
JANEA: Summer 2000
It starts with a scramble to find a place to live, on the very day
Janea graduates from La Quinta High School in Westminster.
"My group home says I have to be out by midnight," Janea says in
the school parking lot, still wearing her cap and gown. "I'm
homeless."
She's taken in by the aunt whom Janea, as a young teenager,
attacked with a hammer--and letter opener and baseball bat.
Born March 15, 1982, at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, Janea was
given up by her mother three years later and left to the care of a
father who abused drugs.
"About 99.9% of the time, he was loaded on something. If he wasn't
drunk, he was spracked on whatever drugs he may have done," Janea says
a decade later. "Our house had no electricity, had no running water,
had no heat--had no nothing."
Only after she ran away at 7 years old, and told a patrol officer
about her father's rampant drug use, did authorities take Janea and
her little brother to live with the step-aunt in Santa Ana. Four years
would pass before Janea, during a therapy session, finally spoke of
being sexually molested by her father, an allegation he denied.
"Everyone who hears my story feels sorry for me. I'm like, why?
These rape victims, all they do is cry and boohoo about it. They make
me sick," Janea says. "It never did affect me. It's over. I'm done
with it."
Her very denial, so callous and harsh, may suggest something else.
Adolescence can dredge up deeply buried wounds in sexually abused
children. The pain can erupt in fits of rage, depression and
promiscuity--all familiar to Janea.
She entered foster care at 13 after attacking her aunt. Janea
ricocheted through a dozen institutional group homes over six years,
and made detours to Orange County Juvenile Hall and a home for
disturbed girls in Provo, Utah.
A habitual runaway, Janea was declared unadoptable even before she
bit a social worker at 16. Her therapy included pills for aggression,
depression, anxiety and mood swings.
The foster care system, the parent-of-last-resort for an estimated
500,000 children in America, is funded by federal, state and local
governments and, in California, is run by county social services
agencies.
The ultimate goal is to reunite children with their parents,
provided a judge rules they're fit to raise a child.
But many children never go home. Some are placed with relatives or
foster families. A lucky few are adopted. Many of the troubled
children wind up in group homes that range from secure "residential
treatment" institutions to small homes with six to eight children and
a 24-hour staff.
Foster parents receive a monthly stipend from the state of $405 to
$569. Institutions collect up to $5,732. Some children stay in the
system for just a few weeks. Others, like Janea, stay for years.
"I was a placement child," she said. "I didn't have anywhere to
go. I wasn't going to a foster home. I was there until I was 18."
Now that Janea has graduated from foster care, she is about to
discover life without medication--by choice.
By the Fourth of July, 14 days out of her group home, Janea is
working at a Wal-Mart part time. She earns a few dimes above minimum
wage and has no benefits. Janea's aunt is letting her sleep on the
living room floor.
"I've got to get out of there," Janea mutters. "Sammy and me want
our own place."
Sammy is Sam Lopez. He left foster care months earlier and sleeps
on a bare mattress in a mobile home a block away. He is 19, weighs 300
pounds and still wets the bed.
On July 11, Janea breaks the news to her former social worker:
"You'll never guess. I'm getting married!" One hour and $101.50 in
court fees later, Janea and Sam are standing at the altar in the
Orange County Marriage License Office.
By 6 p.m., they are back at her aunt's apartment eating tacos.
When night falls, Sam leaves for his trailer. Janea heads upstairs
alone.
Janea insists she and Sam love each other. She says he lost his
temper and pushed her once, and punched out a plexiglass window a
while back, but he never hits her. When Janea revealed she was
molested as a girl, Sam was very understanding, she says. Not once has
he pressured her into having sex.
A week after their wedding night, the newlyweds are in a $25 room
at the Alhambra Motel near Cal State Los Angeles. The police had
chased Sam out of Santa Ana when he refused to pay rent, and Janea and
her aunt had had one argument too many.
A ****roach skitters across the carpet toward a wadded napkin
stained with pizza sauce. Janea and Sam watch from the comfort of
their twin bed, arguing over who should fling a shoe at the intruder.
"This place is OK--for right this second," Janea says.
MONIQUE: Summer 2000
Inside a tiny bedroom with no closets, Monique Luna plunks down
her duffel bags and steps to her new bedroom window.
Monique has found housing at Stepping Stones, a new halfway house
in Fullerton for young mothers who need help breaking into adulthood.
She has a 2-year-old daughter and a few hundred bucks in the bank.
Lyla wanders in and nestles up to her 17-year-old mom, complaining
about stains on her bed. Monique offers a motherly Hmmm. The blanket
can be cleaned. All that matters now is that they finally have a
little privacy, a phone, the freedom to come and go.
Jim Carson, who runs the program, dangles the keys.
"You have a key chain, Monique?" Carson asks.
Her eyes widen. Monique had always lived in places where others
were in charge.
"Nope. I've never had a key chain."
Monique and her older sister were raised by churchgoing
grandparents in Stanton, where their mother had left them as toddlers.
The older couple provided a loving home but not the vigilance to
protect the girls from the world outside.
"I drank beer when I was 11 1/2. When I was 13, I did speed,"
Monique remembers. "When I first had sexual intercourse I was, I
think, 11 1/2 or 12. It was weird. I didn't even like it."
At 14, she was pregnant. Her grandmother, the one person she
counted on for help, died a month after Lyla's birth. Her grandfather
had died two years earlier. Monique dropped out of high school and
worked full time at a local department store. She rented a room from a
friend for months before a neighbor reported her and her baby to the
Orange County Social Services Agency.
Determined to keep custody of Lyla, she convinced the agency to
appoint her boyfriend's mother as her foster parent. Monique legally
became the foster sister of the boy who had impregnated her. Once
again, she found refuge with a caring family. And once again, it
didn't last.
Monique and her daughter's stay ended abruptly seven months later
after she got in a fistfight with Lyla's father. When police arrived,
they found Monique's face covered in blood.
County social workers moved Monique and her daughter to Crittenton
Services for Children and Families, a nonprofit foster care group home
in Fullerton. Next door is Stepping Stones, the agency's halfway house
for teen mothers who are emancipated. It becomes Monique and Lyla's
first stop after foster care.
Days after moving into Stepping Stones, Monique starts scouring
north Orange County for day care. The program provides free care for
at least a month at the Crittenton Services facility next door, but
Lyla is having problems with the other kids. Monique is afraid she'll
be kicked out.
"She's a pincher. My daughter's a pincher."
By mid-July, Monique is working 36 hours a week as a nursing
assistant at Western Medical Center-Anaheim, waking up at 5:30 a.m. to
catch the bus. Each night, after arriving home in hospital scrubs, she
cradles Lyla in her arms to read "Winnie the Pooh."
JESSE: Summer 2000
The same week that Monique moves into Stepping Stones, Jesse
Equihua and his girlfriend cart his belongings to Rising Tide in
Tustin. It's a cluster of apartments for kids leaving foster care and
is complete with cheap rent, job assistance and a resident advisor.
The transitional housing program is run by the Orangewood Children's
Foundation, the private group with close ties to the county Social
Services Agency.
Most of Jesse's adolescence was spent bouncing among institutional
homes in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties. While in the
system, Jesse rarely saw his mother, who eventually moved to Guam
after getting remarried. His father promised to visit often, but
rarely followed through.
"I will never turn out like my dad," Jesse says. "He wasn't even
really a father to me."
Within days of arriving at Rising Tide, Jesse is sleeping until
noon and wailing away on his Fender Squire bass guitar until 3 a.m.
His full-time job is hanging out at the pool, skateboarding and
cranking up his boombox.
"Last night I got a full body massage by one of the girls," Jesse
laughs.
A week later, Jesse is up at 4 a.m. tripping on LSD and
videotaping two sleeping roommates: "Look at the white guy! He's on
film!"
Until now, social workers had told Jesse when to get up, when to
go to bed, what he could watch on TV, what posters could be tacked to
his walls.
"I'm not sweating it," Jesse says. "I've got $500 in the bank. So
if I'm jobless for a month, that's OK."
JANEA: Midsummer 2000
Leery eyes blink from the dark hollows of Los Angeles Street on
July 25, where nightfall turns downtown sidewalks into a concrete
encampment of cardboard boxes.
Janea and Sam wade through the stench of urine and sweat, trying
to avoid eye contact with the homeless settling in on skid row. A man
relieves himself in a doorway, caring little about the two teens
walking nearby.
"This is only for one night, OK?" Sam whispers. "You understand?"
"I understand," Janea says. "It's just that I've never seen
anything like this before. You don't see this in Orange County."
That afternoon, they had been in an Alhambra motel room with
dreams of going to Fresno to live with Janea's mother. Many foster
kids harbor fantasies that they were victims of a big mistake, and
that the parents who mistreated them are longing to make amends.
Janea's fantasy evaporates with a collect call. Mom hung up on me,
Janea says.
With no car and less than $5 between them, Janea and Sam take the
483 bus to downtown L.A., hoping to find beds at the Union Rescue
Mission. It's the only shelter in the area that isn't full.
Janea might have been able to avoid this. Before leaving her
foster care group home in Westminster, she was encouraged to apply for
transitional housing--including the program that Jesse entered. But
Janea yearned to be on her own--and left alone. Janea hated the
system, and transitional housing is still the system.
Even if Janea did apply, the odds were against her. On average,
about 200 children age out of foster care every year in Orange County.
There are spaces for fewer than 50 in transitional housing programs.
So for most, the very system that rescued them as children does not
hesitate to cast them out on their own once they become adults.
"We can take her," a woman at the Union Rescue Mission says,
indicating there is no room for Sam.
Sam's only option is a plastic chair in the mission chapel, a
cavernous room that echoes with the snores of hundreds of men. The air
burns with a suffocating stink. The lights stay on all night.
The next morning, in the predawn darkness, the streets seem less
menacing. The tremor in Janea's voice is gone. The young couple board
a bus toward East Olympic Boulevard and South Soto Street, to the
nearest welfare office.
By 10 a.m., they have a two-week voucher for the Royal Knights
Motel in East L.A., $34 in bus tokens, $8.50 in cash and more than
$200 in food stamps. By nightfall, their grim, gang-graffitied motel
room is littered with Chips Ahoy, Chee-tos and other junk food.
Instead of looking for work, Sam and Janea hang out at a taco
stand across the street or lie in bed watching TV.
When the food stamps run out in early August, Janea hocks her
engagement ring for $20 to buy a pizza. It's a baffling sacrifice,
considering that she is well aware that their next monthly check is
waiting at the welfare office 20 minutes away.
Their best hope, it's decided one Thursday morning, is to sell
Roscoe, the malnourished, flea-infested Rottweiler puppy they found
three days earlier. That'll bring in $300 easily, Sam says.
They pace in front of a 7-Eleven with a crude cardboard sign: "For
Sale Baby Rottweiler, Full Blooded." After four hours in the baking
heat, Janea gives up and heads back to the motel. Sam insists on
staying and hurls profanities when he's left behind.
Five minutes later, Sam runs up, huffing and puffing. He grabs
Janea's shoulder and spins her around. They talk, then argue, then
shove. Sam ****s his fist and punches Janea's face. Her screams begin
before the blood has time to trickle down her chin.
"Somebody call the police! Call 911.... Help me! ... Help me!"
Sam, afraid, drops to his knees sobbing. He locks his arms around
Janea's waist and begs her to stop shrieking. After he is pulled off,
Janea sprints down the alley--with Sam right behind.
She is shaking with rage when the squad cars pull up. A bright red
bruise wells under her right eye as she fingers the jagged edge of her
chipped front tooth. Within half an hour, Sam is hauled off to jail.
Janea drifts down Whittier Boulevard, then stops near a storefront
ministry. She sits, tilting her face toward the setting sun, and says
nothing for the longest time.
"I feel that if I stay with him, I'm just like my mother. My dad
hit her," Janea finally says. "Deserved it, though."
MONIQUE: Late summer 2000
For Monique, Stepping Stones seemed like a good fit at first. But
a month past her 18th birthday in late July, the house rules are
gnawing at her.
The program forbids visitors and has a zero-tolerance policy on
drugs and alcohol. Residents are required to work or attend college or
a trade school. They must be home at a reasonable hour, and the
kitchen must be kept clean.
Monique tries hard. But she is also a rebellious teenager.
She spends many nights out with her friends--always with Lyla in
tow. A 2-year-old needs a schedule and a stable home life, Stepping
Stones administrator Jim Carson tells her. He lays out a daily
itinerary: mealtimes, nap times, playtimes, bedtimes. Straighten up or
you're gone, Carson warns.
But every day, Monique sees other 18-year-olds frittering away the
summer, swarming the malls, spending weekends at the beach, while her
life is consumed by a job and a temperamental 2-year-old. Money's
tight, and in a month she'll have to start paying for Lyla's day care.
She already depends on food-bank donations. Her plans to pursue a
registered nursing degree have been put on hold.
"It's sad, but I feel old. But then I think, Oh my God, I'm 18. I
can't be a little kid anymore," Monique says. "[Lyla] doesn't deserve
to have a mom like me.... She deserves a better dad."
Lyla's father is 18-year-old Richard Molina, a Stanton
construction worker. When he found out she was dating another guy, she
said, he threatened to snatch Lyla in the middle of the night. Later,
when she sought a restraining order against Molina, she said only that
he threatened to take Lyla by getting an attorney.
Monique's new boyfriend, who is on probation, adds to the stress.
He wants to get married.
"Too much drama," the teen mother sighs.
And it never seems to end. A few mornings later, Monique gets a
phone call at work: Pick up your daughter at day care--she has lice.
JESSE: Late summer 2000
Life is a lot less complicated for Jesse. After 1 1/2 months at
Rising Tide, he's still sleeping until noon, hanging out at the pool
and partying past 3 a.m. And he's flat broke. His $500 in savings went
to rent--$200 a month--cigarettes and Taco Bell. The power has already
been cut off once, and the phone might be next.
"Come on, we're just kids," Jesse says. "We're emancipated youth
from group homes; we never had a chance to go get drunk. So we go take
advantage on our own."
Paul Bernard, head of Rising Tide, has seen enough. He places
Jesse on probation, banning him from the apartment complex during
daytime, when he should be out looking for a job. If Jesse isn't
working in two weeks, he'll be packing his bags.
By Aug. 9, Jesse is wearing a bow tie and tearing tickets at the
Edwards Cinema in the Tustin Market Place. He landed the job after
Bernard pulled him out of bed one morning and drove him to the theater
to apply. One of the movie chain's executives is on the board of
directors that runs Rising Tide.
"I'm getting just above minimum wage, $5.75 an hour," Jesse says
as he sweeps up popcorn. "Hopefully, within a couple months, I'll be
an assistant manager."
JANEA: Late summer 2000
Bundled in a hooded sweatshirt and a grass-stained Army blanket,
Janea snuggles closer to her friends for protection against the
midnight chill and the junkies camped beneath the trees.
A two-foot steel pipe lies beside her, for use in case her cache
of empty beer bottles attracts a crowd. If they disappear, no one eats
tomorrow.
Janea settles in for another night's sleep in East L.A.'s
Belvedere Park to be close to Sam, who's sitting in a warm jail cell a
block away.
"Oh Jesus," Janea sighs. "I can't wait to get into a warm, comfy
bed. Jail is a breeze compared to this. They've got TVs."
The hum of the Pomona Freeway eventually lulls her to sleep.
The day after Sam hit her, Janea arrived at the park pushing a
shopping cart. Her friend Dianna came with her, along with Dianna's 17-
year-old boyfriend Matt. A runaway from a foster home in Los Angeles,
Matt suggested Belvedere Park, a few grassy acres wedged between East
L.A.'s Municipal Court, the freeway and a sheriff's station. Police
helicopters land 50 yards from where they sleep, descending from the
night sky in flurries of dancing lights. No one would dare attack them
here.
The three adjust to their new home with amazing ease, living off
handouts and recyclable bottles and cans. They commandeer the park's
putrid restroom, holding their noses as they take baths in the
stainless-steel sinks. Janea even gets her hands on her favorite brand
of red hair dye. The nearby branch library offers air-conditioned
respite, with free Internet access.
The environs prove too harsh for Roscoe the pup, however. After a
few days at the park, Janea gives him to a couple at a nearby
McDonald's.
"He needed a good home. His lip was puffed up and he looked sick,"
Janea says. "We all agree that when we get a house with a yard, we'll
go to the pound and get a baby Rott."
After 10 days, they break camp when Sam strikes a deal with the
district attorney. Sam is sentenced to 10 days in jail--which he has
already served--plus three years' probation, $300 in fines and a year
of domestic violence counseling.
"Today is almost as good as my wedding day," Janea exclaims after
the Aug. 21 hearing. "I don't have to be by myself anymore."
"Sam!" she screams across the courtyard when he staggers out of
jail, head shaved and looking angry. They talk quietly for a few
minutes, then he plants a gentle kiss. All is forgiven.
JESSE: Early fall 2000
Jesse keeps reporting to work, and the paychecks keep rolling in.
The fridge is full of pizza and frozen burritos.
Jesse's closest friend, Johnny Gardea, hasn't done as well. With
no steady job and no money for rent, Johnny has been ordered out by
Sept. 10.
On Sept. 2, to kick off Johnny's farewell weekend, he and Jesse
make a doughnut run to Krispy Kreme. Jesse is doing his best to cheer
up his "brother," as he calls him. Back inside Johnny's apartment,
Jesse breaks out a bottle of Captain Morgan's rum. Johnny breaks out
two pellet guns, and they head to the back-bedroom window.
The first shot shatters the odometer in Shawn Rainwater's Ford
Mustang, then three more strafe his trunk--POP! POP! POP! Seconds
later, a shot rips into Sergio Baigorria's stomach, and two others
sting Gaspar Paz's back as he holds his 15-month-old son.
Jesse swears he fired only one shot "at a leaf." Johnny was the
one aiming at people, Jesse says.
As sirens approach, the two hustle to Jesse's apartment and stash
the guns under a mattress. Minutes later, a police bullhorn orders
them outside.
The two wounded victims are taken to the hospital, where their
medical bills eventually reach $15,000. Jesse and Johnny are charged
with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and bail is set at
$50,000 apiece. They face six years in prison.
"They admitted shooting out the window," says Lt. Bill Fisher of
the Tustin Police Department. "You start shooting people, it doesn't
matter what it's with."
At Orange County Jail, Jesse is dressed in a ragged orange
jumpsuit and sneakers without shoelaces. Deputies put him on suicide
watch the day he arrives.
"I'm lost and lonely in here, man," Jesse says, wiping away tears.
On Sept. 16, Jesse's 19th birthday, his only visitor is a
reporter. That night, jail doctors put him on Paxil, the
antidepressant he was given in foster care. Jesse won't eat.
"It's like my other two birthdays in Juvenile Hall," he mumbles.
Other Tustin police officers later testify that Johnny was the one
who admitted shooting the rifle, saying he was trying to "get a rise"
out of the people in the alley. Still, Johnny is the one who gets
bailed out. Dwayne Brigham, Johnny's volunteer mentor while he was in
foster care, forked over $5,000 for a bail bond.
Jesse doesn't know anyone with that kind of money. So he sits in
his cell at Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange, awaiting trial.
MONIQUE: Early fall 2000
A few miles away, Monique spends most of her shift at Western
Medical Center changing bedpans and taking patients' vital signs.
"I really want to be an E.R. nurse," she says. "My job isn't very
glamorous. I clean up yucky stuff."
In Room 202, an older woman woozy on Demerol has soiled herself in
bed. After changing the sheets, Monique scurries down the hall to the
supply closet and grabs a pack of wipes, warming them in the
microwave.
"Let me help you," Monique says, gently cleaning the woman before
helping her into a fresh bed.
Certified nursing assistants are among the lowest-paid employees
in the hospital. Monique works three 12-hour shifts a week, earning $8
an hour and volunteering for overtime when she can.
In foster care, Monique's counselors told her she was a "natural"
when it came to nursing, saying her desire to nurture is a response to
not receiving nurturing as a child.
Monique laughs. They were always trying to psychoanalyze her. Not
that Monique doesn't have problems. Just ask her.
"I have abandonment issues," she says. "It's not only because my
mom left me, but because my grandpa died, my grandma died, and my
sister's not around. I'm basically by myself."
For Monique, her father exists in name only--Lorenzo Ramirez Luna.
He fled to Mexico after she was born, which she thinks explains her
need for constant male companionship: "I want to have a guy around all
the time.... I've always had a boyfriend, even if it was somebody
stupid."
JANEA: Early fall 2000
Throughout September, Janea and Sam skip between homeless shelters
and seedy motels on Beach Boulevard in Anaheim and Buena Park. Some
nights they double up with other homeless families, stuffing 10 people
into a motel room.
Some days, Janea crawls out of bed at 4 a.m. and takes a bus to
Fullerton to sign up for work at a day-labor firm. Her jobs vary from
day to day: security guard at an Anaheim car auction; packaging cell
phones in Fullerton; working with sheet metal at an Irvine machine
shop. On good days Janea pockets $50 or more, but it rarely lasts
until morning. When she has the cash, Janea and Sam usually wind up in
a soft motel bed.
When Janea is too tired to work, they stay at the First Southern
Baptist Church of Buena Park. Unlike other shelters, the church lets
the needy stay as long as they want. There is room on the floor to
sleep and donated food to eat.
Until now, Janea and Sam dabbled in petty crimes mainly as a
matter of survival. Janea wrote hundreds of dollars' worth of bad
checks over the summer to buy clothes, blankets, food and medicine--
stopping only when stores started rejecting the worthless paper. In
the fall, the couple begin shoplifting--stealing shoes from Wal-Mart
or raiding a supermarket for toothpaste, tampons and candy bars.
In late October, when the stench from Sam's Nikes becomes too much
to stomach, the two know exactly what to do.
"We went to Wal-Mart and jacked him some tennis shoes," Janea says
one Thursday afternoon.
One day after work, Janea says, she and another shelter friend
pooled their cash to buy a few rocks of crack cocaine for $50--hoping
to peddle it on the street and double their money. By the end of the
night, Janea's partner found another way to dispose of it.
"He smoked it all. That was so stupid," Janea says, cursing
herself.
In November, she says, they hooked up with an ex-con at Orange
Coast Interfaith Shelter in Costa Mesa. The ex-con used a screwdriver
to bust into a white minivan, and off they went to visit his family in
El Monte. They returned in a nice, brown 1979 Cadillac coupe she says
they stole at Brea Mall.
"We were having so much fun," Janea says. "I wasn't stressing. I
was like, who cares? Let me go to jail."
MONIQUE: Fall 2000
With Lyla starting day care in Garden Grove, the toddler's
grandmother volunteers as chauffeur, pulling up at 6:30 a.m. each
workday. Monique's boyfriend or cousin usually gives her a ride home
from the hospital, and they pick up Lyla on the way.
But rarely, if ever, is Lyla in a car seat. That bothers Carson of
Stepping Stones. For months, he has pestered Monique about endangering
her daughter's life and flouting the law.
A week before Halloween, the walls come crashing down. After
Lyla's grandmother drives up to take her to day care, a shouting match
erupts when Carson sees Monique putting Lyla in the car without a
child-safety seat. Carson threatens to report her for child abuse.
Monique relents, and grabs a car seat stashed in her room.
But for Carson, it's the last straw. He calls Monique into his
office and tells her: You're out.
"There are some rules that are hard and fast," Carson says
afterward, explaining that child endangerment tops the list. "It has
nothing to do with Monique loving her child," he said, adding that she
can stay until she finds another place.
Monique knows it was a serious lapse: "But a car seat?" she says,
indignant--and worried that the incident may endanger her custody of
Lyla, which is still being monitored by the courts.
For two weeks, Monique searches central Orange County for an
apartment. She pays $220 a month at Stepping Stones--and now can't
find anything cheaper than $700.
"Depression! Depression! I have to move," Monique whines to her
friends as they party one Friday night. "Did I tell you what they told
me? I could stay at a homeless shelter!"
But the longer she stays at Stepping Stones looking for a new
home, the more stressed she becomes.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Monique and another young mother
are rolling on the floor, throwing punches and pulling hair.
"She was telling me I was a bad mom and I didn't treat my daughter
right," Monique says.
That night, Monique shows up at her aunt's front door in Stanton,
holding Lyla and a suitcase full of clothes.
JESSE: Fall 2000
Behind bars for just 1 1/2 months, Jesse already has the shaved
head of a hard-timer and has mastered all the cellblock lingo.
Jesse is the youngest guy in his unit, F-East, and he's been
"hanging with the woods"--the white inmates. You have to pick a side,
he explains--whites, Latinos, blacks or Asians--and Jesse decided long
ago to reject the Latino label. His father was a descendant of the
Tarascan tribe of Mexico and Arizona.
That has caused him problems with Latino inmates. Jesse was
attacked the day he arrived at Theo Lacy, but escaped injury when
guards intervened.
"It's all politics in here, man."
The week before Thanksgiving, Jesse and Johnny plead guilty to
identical charges, three felony counts of assault with a deadly
weapon. As part of the plea deal, the judge agrees to consider
reducing the charges to misdemeanors if a pre-sentencing investigation
finds they have no previous criminal record or history of violence.
Sentencing is set for Jan. 5, giving Jesse 1 1/2 months to sit in
jail and worry through the holidays. Jesse's mood vacillates between
helplessness and grim acceptance. On visiting days, he stays under the
sheets, knowing the guards will never call his name. He searches for
glimmers of hope amid the mindless daily routines, as he reveals in a
Thanksgiving Day letter to a reporter:
"Well today it's turkey day and I'm stuck in heer. Man! If I was
out there I would probobly be havin' a smoke, or skating or havin' a
barbeque or some thing. But here I am writing you guys, sipin' on some
coffee and watching out for myself.... This is OK-4-now...."
By December, jail doctors have Jesse on the antidepressants
Trazodone and Paxil. He spends most of his time sleeping and has begun
going to chapel whenever he can--both the Roman Catholic and
Protestant services. Jesse convinces himself the judge will spring him
in January, even though his attorney makes no promises.
"I miss my earrings and I miss my cigarettes," he says in early
December. "I miss my music, radio, my CDs, my bass, my Boogie Board. I
miss my skateboard. I miss being a kid."
JANEA: Winter 2000-01
Janea is tired. She's tired of being poor. She's tired of
supporting Sam. She's tired of spending night after night on the hard
floor of the church in Buena Park.
"I hate being in a shelter, not having the proper things," Janea
says. "I hate not being able to come home, throw my keys on the table--
have a table to throw keys on."
On Christmas morning, Janea wakes up inside another dingy room in
another seedy Anaheim motel and decides she's had enough. Sam's
history. She'll file for an annulment. She'll move back with her aunt
in Santa Ana. She's starting over.
Early the next morning, as Sam sleeps, Janea slips out of their
room without saying goodbye.
"I think I made the right choice," Janea says. "He can go out and
do something with his life--get a job."
Within a month, Janea and Sam are cuddled on a bed in Buena Park's
Gas Lamp Motel. Janea's new life with her aunt crumbled after a few
weeks.
In the end, Janea says, she had nowhere else to turn.
JESSE: Winter 2000-01
On a cold, rainy Friday in January, Jesse steps out of the
brightly lit lobby of Theo Lacy Jail wearing a white T-shirt, baggy
shorts and flip-flops. And an exhausted smile.
"I'm free," he says softly, closing his eyes as raindrops wash
over him.
That morning, the charges against him were reduced to three
misdemeanors, and he was released after 126 days in jail.
"I've got a friend who's going to help me out," Jesse says. A
fellow inmate, jailed for drunk driving, had talked his wife into
renting Jesse a spare bedroom in their Mission Viejo home. She has a
job waiting for him. Jesse's going to be a telemarketer.
About 8 p.m., a gleaming white Jeep Grand Cherokee pulls into the
parking lot, and a slender blond woman saunters over to Jesse.
"Hi, I'm Suzanne."
Minutes later, the Jeep's doors slam shut. Jesse disappears into
traffic.
MONIQUE: Winter 2000-01
Monique's entire life, including her successes and failures as a
mother, are reduced to a stack of reports piled before Juvenile Court
Commissioner Gary L. Vincent for a custody hearing 11 days before
Christmas.
Monique and Richard, Lyla's father, sit silently. Richard casts an
unsettling presence, with a pierced eyebrow, shaved head and a "Lyla"
tattoo scrawled across the back of his neck.
For 20 minutes, Monique's lawyer praises her client's promising
nursing career and college plans.
The judge agrees.
"You don't expect to see that kind of maturity from someone 18,"
Vincent says. "We have a result here that's about as positive as you
can get."
Monique wins sole custody of Lyla, with strings. A social worker
is to check on them for six months.
On Jan. 4, Monique and Lyla walk into their new home at the
Emerald Gardens Apartments in Buena Park--an apartment subsidized by
the Orange County Housing Authority.
The only pieces of furniture are two donated beds and Lyla's
kiddie table. Except for a bottle of juice, the fridge is bare.
"I have my own room. My daughter has her own room," Monique says,
smiling. "I have my own kitchen, and I don't want to wash the dishes
every time I use them. I can just leave them there."
Monique is home.
EPILOGUE: Summer 2001
More than a year has passed since Jesse, Monique and Janea were
sent into adulthood with a handshake and a duffel bag stuffed with
socks and a toaster.
In that time, another 2,300 children "aged out" of foster care in
California. Some will wind up sleeping in homeless shelters, getting
pregnant or landing in jail. Others will find a steady job or head to
college--working hard and finding ways to persevere.
To improve the odds for all emancipated foster youths, Congress in
1999 approved the Foster Care Independence Act, setting aside $140
million a year to help young adults make the transition to self-
sufficiency--doubling federal funding over previous efforts.
Still, the increased funding doesn't help much. In California,
only about 10% are expected to receive assistance, said Sylvia
Pizzini, deputy director of the state's Children and Family Services
Division. There simply is not enough to go around.
This year, Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento vowed to make
California's troubled foster care system--and emancipated foster kids--
a legislative priority, introducing a $300-million package of reforms
during a flashy press conference in April.
By July, the proposed funding had been whittled to $19 million--
thanks, in part, to the money spent during the state's energy crisis.
The Orange County Social Services Agency, which a 2000 grand jury
criticized for abdicating responsibility for emancipated foster
children, has announced plans to hire 12 "coaches" to guide the youths
through the services available to them.
Still, some welfare experts say there's no telling what these
efforts will accomplish. No one really knows what programs are the
most effective for these kids, or what amount of funding is really
needed.
Jesse, for instance, had transitional housing, job assistance and
independent living classes. Yet three months into freedom, he was in
jail.
On his own for months now, Jesse still struggles. After a month or
so of living with Suzanne and working for minimum wage at her Mission
Viejo mortgage company, he packed his bags and moved in with a friend
a few miles away. Six weeks later, he moved in with a girlfriend and
her mother--sleeping on the couch.
After flirting with employment at Jamba Juice and losing out on a
job at Stater Bros. because of his criminal record, Jesse finally
finds work: pouring lattes at a neighborhood Starbucks.
A chunk of every paycheck goes to paying the nearly $6,000 in
court-imposed fines Jesse owes--mostly to reimburse the victims for
their medical bills. Almost everything else is gobbled up by rent,
groceries and other necessities.
"It's such a drag. I can't save anything," Jesse says one
September afternoon, slurping a lemonade at the Laguna Hills Mall food
court.
It could be worse, he says. His probation officer and the prospect
of drug tests keep him in line--working steady and no partying. Plus,
a few weeks shy of his 20th birthday, Jesse got his driver's license.
"Now that was sweet," he says.
Monique has managed to piece together a relatively normal life in
Buena Park. She's taking nursing classes at Cypress College--starting
the slow process of working for her registered nursing degree.
Even when she lost her job at Western Medical Center in May, in
part for missing too many days of work to go to school and care for
Lyla, Monique bounced back. She landed a higher-paying job with a
local nursing registry--which gives her flexible hours, and allows her
to go to school and care for Lyla.
But her final ascension into adulthood, and as a mother, remains
elusive.
After all she had accomplished in the past year, Monique walked
into Orange County Family Court on June 4 expecting to win full,
unfettered custody of Lyla.
She walked out sullen, dejected, almost in tears. Lyla was to
remain a ward of the court for a few more months--at the very least.
"I was ready for it to be over," Monique says.
But it's far from over. In late August, Monique reveals that she's
seven months pregnant. Just like her first pregnancy, when she was 14,
Monique found a way to keep it a secret from everyone but her closest
friends. Her bulging belly makes that impossible now.
It happened in February, she says sheepishly, when she briefly got
back together with Richard--her old boyfriend and Lyla's father.
Richard held her hand when the baby girl was born on Oct. 24.
Monique cradles the newborn Brianna in her arms a month later as
she sits in Family Court, waiting to hear if she'll finally win full
custody of Lyla. This time, she leaves smiling.
"I want to thank you for being an example of how difficult
circumstances can be overcome," said presiding court Commissioner
Vincent, after declaring Lyla was no longer a ward of the court.
"You're young, but you don't act like it. We wish you well."
Janea's prospects remain much dimmer. After months of sleeping on
floors and jumping from job to job in the spring, she discovers she's
pregnant.
In April, she and Sam board a Greyhound bus--armed with $30 and
two one-way tickets to Las Vegas. Vegas would give them a clean slate,
a place they can start over and do it right this time.
After spending a week at a homeless shelter, the couple are
recruited by a local ministry that requires them to beg for donations
on street corners and outside supermarkets.
By late June, they are back in Southern California, living in the
ministry's offices in South-Central L.A. Now almost six months
pregnant, Janea is shuttled to a Rite Aid in Burbank three times a
week to hit up shoppers for spare change. Thirty percent goes in her
pocket; the rest goes to the ministry.
"They tell me I'm having a girl. She's healthy as a horse," Janea
says. "I hope so. I'll tell ya, I'm worried about this kid."
By November, Janea and Sam are back on welfare and living in a
subsidized apartment in Buena Park. After quitting his job as a
supermarket security guard, Sam spent nearly half his final paycheck
of $300 on a new cell phone. He now works as a janitor at Knott's
Berry Farm.
Janea's labor pains begin Nov. 20. Leilanie Lopez arrives the
morning of Nov. 21, weighing in at more than 8 pounds.
"Thank God that's over," Janea mutters.
The day Janea comes home, one of the first calls she makes is to
the local welfare office--to ask for vouchers for milk and food.
Those who work with the foster care children see an inevitability
to their lives--an intractable cycle of addiction, abuse and
indifference that is tough to break, regardless of government
programs.
"Remember who we're talking about here," said Carson of Stepping
Stones, the transitional housing program in Fullerton that caters to
teen mothers. The kids he sees year after year "have been beaten,
abused and raped--many times by their own parents. That's normal life
to them.
"These are damaged kids."
Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times