Is Foster Care a Pipeline to Homelessness?

On May 19, 2025, a class of up to 9,000 foster children sued the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services in a bombshell federal lawsuit. They alleged that the child welfare agency “warehouses children” who aren’t in permanent homes. They are placed in stopgap institutions — reminiscent of jails — without adequate food, bedding, soap, and water, the lawsuit says. 

The lawsuit comes after years of complaints that the foster care system is essentially creating a pipeline to homelessness, with children experiencing housing instability while in care. It has had disastrous consequences. A month before the Tennessee lawsuit was filed, Jaydun Garcia, a 16-year-old boy in New Mexico, took his own life while living in a similar kind of institution — one that local advocates had long warned was not suitable, mentally or physically, for foster children. Jaydun’s death is not an isolated incident: It is proof that the recent lawsuit reveals a widespread, pernicious problem of a foster-care-to-homelessness pipeline.

Experiencing Homelessness While in Care

For decades, the imperfect foster care system shuffled children between temporary family homes until they exited care. You’d hear horror stories of foster children living in 10 homes a year. But as of 2023, 43 states experienced a decline in the number of licensed foster homes, upending the system entirely. There are far fewer homes, leading child welfare agencies to make some disastrous decisions. 

Some agencies assign foster children to live in government offices. Children as young as 7 years old sleep overnight on the floors of child welfare agencies while their caseworkers type notes a few feet away. Prince Hayward recalls the experience of living at a child welfare office when he was about 7 years old.  “You don’t know where you’re going to lay your head—where you’re going to get your next plate of food,” he told The Texas Tribune. Prince’s experience is harrowing, and yet children live and sleep at child welfare offices in Georgia, California and Washington.

These makeshift shelters in government offices are just the tip of the iceberg. Some states house foster kids in jails. In 2023, the Cook County public guardian sued Illinois child welfare officials, alleging that instead of finding homes for foster youth released from juvenile detention, the agency threw its hands up and gave an institutional shrug. The children were left languishing in jail, well beyond their release date. One 15-year-old, charged with stealing a backpack at a bus stop, was trapped in detention seven months after his scheduled release. Since the agency did not find home placements, the jail became his housing. 

To be clear: This is homelessness. The agencies don’t call it that. They call children sleeping in offices, jails, or stopgap institutions “emergency placements.” But these children are effectively homeless because they have no stable, permanent housing.

“My Parent Is Homeless. Child Welfare Took Me Away”

About ten years ago, I received a call I’ll never forget. A mother on the other end of the line frantically screamed into the phone: “They’re trying to take my baby away because of the repairs!” I’d been working as a tenants’ rights attorney and had seen the gamut:  elaborate rent schemes by landlords, tenants tucking bedbugs in an envelope to surprise the judge in court. Even those wild stories couldn’t prepare me for the dystopian horror that prompted this call: child welfare sweeping children from homes and placing them in foster care because of housing issues. This mother felt powerless because her landlord refused to address repairs. That resulted in child welfare labeling her home “inadequate.” 

Across the nation, child welfare officials routinely remove children from their families because of housing issues such as disrepair or caretaker homelessness. In fact, housing is one of the top five reasons for all child removals — nearly twice as high as children being removed from their homes due to sexual abuse, parent incarceration, or abandonment.

In one instance, a mother from Georgia named Brittany Wise was arrested for an unpaid traffic ticket, as reported by ProPublica. During the arrest, her children were in the back of the family SUV. Wise asked the arresting officer to contact Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services in the hopes they could safeguard the children while she was in jail. But when Wise was released three days later, the agency informed her that her children would remain in state care because she lacked stable housing.

If you’re thinking, That could never be me, think again. In my 12 years of practice as a tenants’ rights attorney, I’ve learned that anyone could be homeless. The common thread in the thousands of stories I’ve listened to? One or two life upsets — job loss, mental health decline, cancer diagnosis — and suddenly your whole world is upside down and you’re fighting for your life in Housing Court to avoid eviction and homelessness. The most recent federal data in 2024 reveals that the national homelessness rate has reached its highest level since the housing agency began monitoring it. Like Wise, more families will face the terrifying experience of child welfare placing their children in foster care due to homelessness. 

Research also shows parents at risk of eviction face significant stress, anxiety, and a higher likelihood of substance abuse and mental health issues which could lead to harsh parenting and ultimately child abuse. A 2022 study found that when the eviction rate goes up in a community — as in one more eviction per 100 rental homes — reports of child abuse or neglect also increase by 1.3%.

We want to protect our children. We want to protect children. Common logic would dictate that if a parent cannot provide a stable home, then child welfare should step in. But what if the children removed due to their parents’ homelessness are then placed in foster care, where they effectively become homeless anyway? 

Aging Out of Foster Care With Nowhere to Go 

Even if homelessness isn’t the reason a child is placed in foster care, it may still await them when they exit care. A recent report revealed that in New York City alone, 31% of foster youth couldn’t find housing when they aged out of care. In another study, 42% of transition-aged foster youth in California had suicidal ideations, while 24% had already attempted it. 

Walking in the shoes of an 18-year-old foster youth aging out of care reveals how these systemic roadblocks pave the path to homelessness.  For an 18-year-old exiting care, college is a luxury that requires both tuition money and a place to live.  Yet only 26.6% of public community colleges, the least expensive option, offer student housing.  Even if an 18- to 21-year-old forgoes college and takes a job, the salary is likely to be minimum wage or slightly higher. However, minimum wage workers can afford a one-bedroom rental in only 7% of U.S. counties.  It doesn’t help that landlords discriminate against renters who take in foster youth. In New York City, a landlord sought to evict tenants for welcoming a foster child into their home, claiming they had no right to do so since the child was not their biological relative. The court ultimately ruled against the landlord, but the sentiment and overreaching meddling into a tenant’s life is a reality that foster parents face.

As we reflect on how these barriers prevent foster youth from finding their own homes, it becomes clearer to understand why half of the homeless population in the U.S. used to be a foster child. 

A Path Forward

If we want to decrease homelessness, we need to prioritize addressing one big part of the root: foster care.

Some states, like Washington, have passed laws to curb child removals on the basis of housing. We need to build low-income affordable housing to put a dent in the number of children entering foster care in the first place. Another solution is funding more housing vouchers—that’s where foster youth aging out receive vouchers to make the housing search easier. On May 2, 2025, the White House announced its latest budget plan to reduce rental assistance overall but added a note that the budget includes “$25 million in housing grants for youth aging out of foster care.” 

Vouchers are a helpful tool, and should be one out of many in the toolshed. (In my experience, a 21-year-old with no credit score and zero job experience faces more housing discrimination while apartment-seeking than older voucher holders with a housing history and steady job). We should also build supportive housing for foster youth. Cities such as Houston and Nashville are funding these measures which combine affordability and on-site services to ease the transition to adulthood. This works. One supportive housing initiative in New York boasts a 95% success rate of foster youth transitioning to permanent housing. Our priority should be to address the root causes to avoid foster care entirely while not contributing to a dehumanizing experience for young children who already have a weak safety net.