Email to Me: Why Should We Care About Foster Kids? Why My Taxes?

Question by @@@@@: Email to me: Why should we care about foster kids? Why my taxes?
My response to the email:

– Over 50% of foster youth wind up homeless and 45% wind up homeless within the first year after being “out of care”
In a study in Canada among Calgary street kids, 90% had been released from foster care.

– Kids who grow up in foster care are 50% more likely to be involved in domestic violence as adults

– Kids who grow up in foster care are 30% more likely to be substance abusers

– Various studies have shown 40% of ex-foster kids are on public assistance and 50% are unemployed

– Only 54% of foster kids graduate high school

– 80% of Illinois prisoners spent time in foster care and 75% of Connecticut prisoners spent time in foster care

And you are worried about the tax burden when foster kids are children….look at the burden when they become adults!!! The problems don’t just disappear…they get worse and more serious. Stop and think!

Plus, get a heart…you are talking about kids!
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So where should our tax money go? If it goes to the prisons, look who is in the prisons! If it goes to the welfare system, look who is receiving welfare! If it goes to homeless shelters, look who is homeless!

Sheesh..

Best answer:

Answer by Brownetown
I am not inclined to believe children are born bad. Well some are sociopaths and you can’t do anything about it. Most, however, are shaped by their experiences. I believe in nurture much more than nature. Those stats tell me that perhaps more money being spent early on giving foster kids opportunity would save a lot of money later. A stitch in time saves nine. That may not be true, but if these kids get some love and guidance, there is no reason they cannot be as productive as the next kid.

Answer by Randy B
I look at it all in a pretty simple way.

First off, we owe it to those in our society who are weak and who need help to provide that help. Especially those who are children and who are, in most cases, innocent in regards to their situation.

Secondly, it just makes good business sense. We either pay now, as a society, to care for these children and to see to it that they get as much help and support as we can provide to them (which in many cases…if not most…we don’t really do as well as we could) or we as a society pay even for these children for the rest of their lives through the costs to jail them when they step outside of societies boundries, support them through social services such as welfare, medicaid, food stamps or what have you. Once they enter State (or Provincial) care then society has a responsibility for them and their care.

The goal is to proved them with every opportunity possible to have a happy, healthy and prosperous life. Because they were denied that opportunity through what ever brought them to foster care there is no reason to have them doomed for their future. I know plenty of foster children who have grown up and struggled to get by even with the support of the system when they were younger and because of their issues they are not where they should be and they end up costing society much more. On the other hand, I have met many others who grew up in foster care and who have gone on to be successful and well adjusted. They wouldn’t have had that opportunity without the support of the foster care system.

It’s as simple as we either pay now and hopefully mitigate the impact or we pay much more later and have the wasted lives and societal burden to show for it.

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