We Are Los Angeles

Children and Youth

The We Are LA Children and Youth Program provides benefit, employment and housing navigation for young adults leaving foster care in LA County.

“Foster care doesn’t prepare you to live on your own. What we’re doing here is so important: helping young people find housing, jobs, and the other assistance they need to move into stable, healthy adult lives.”

– Annissa Jimenez, Former foster youth and Caseworker at the RightWay Foundation

Serving LA’s most vulnerable populations

Expanding on efforts that have helped stabilized housing for more than 23,000 Angelenos at risk of eviction and homelessness, the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles will now provide benefit, employment and housing navigation to the roughly 100 young adults leaving foster care in LA County each month because they are turning 21, with plans to expand the program to serve formerly incarcerated and justice-involved youth.

The program provides stability and prevents homelessness among vulnerable children and youth through three separate programs: Resources, Employment Opportunities, and Housing Services. Taken together, they comprise a comprehensive package of interventions.

The Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles has partnered with the Children’s Law Center and the RightWay Foundation to provide full case management, housing navigation and access to housing for 20-year-olds aging out of extended foster care in Los Angeles County. The program plans to serve an estimated 1,200 twenty-year-olds in its first year, with plans to expand these services to 19-year-olds in its second year.

We Are LA Children and Youth program

Each young person aging out of the system will be paired with a trained navigator with lived experience in the foster care system themselves, who will connect them to available resources and help securing housing for them.

The services available will include:

Resources

Screening and connection programs they already qualify for, like CalFresh, MediCal, childcare assistance and earned tax credits.

Employment Opportunities

Connecting young adults with skills training and career opportunities.

Housing Services

Connecting young adults aging out of the foster system with stable housing.

“As a state, these are our children. We have to help them in the same way we help our own children and grandchildren. Services and housing for young adults leaving the system can’t wait because too many are leaving foster care right now without the help they need – almost 25 young adults per month, every month.”

– Conway Collis, Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles President & CEO

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