Juvenile Law Center:
- Over 20,000 youth age-out of foster care at 18 without a permanent family and often without supportive adults in their lives.
- According to The California Policy Lab, approximately 1,000 age-out in Los Angeles County.
- Only 58% of young people in foster care graduate from high school.
- Only 3% of former foster youth graduate from college.
- Teen girls in foster care are 2.5 times more likely to become pregnant by age 19.
- A background of abuse and trauma makes current and former foster youth more vulnerable to sex trafficking.
- More than 60% of child trafficking victims are current or former foster youth.
- One in five former foster youth will become homeless after the age of 18.
- Only half of those aging out will be employed at the age of 24.
- Within four years of aging out, 50% have no earnings, and those who do make an average annual income of $7,500.
- 25% of former foster youth will be in prison within two years of aging out.
- Former foster youth are diagnosed with PTSD at roughly twice the rate of their peers in the general population.