Image: Fafinski Mark & Johnson
My name is Laticia and I am twenty five years old and was born and raised in Iowa. I spent about ten years in total in the Iowa foster care system and aged out of foster care at eighteen without being adopted.
I have been advocating for pandemic relief for former foster youth for over a year now. May 11, 2021 was an exciting and successful day as DHS announced that they were allocating five million dollars towards benefiting current and former foster youth who have been affected by Covid-19. Although this was a great accomplishment, the fight was not yet over. I continued to work with local and national foster youth advocacy organizations to help determine which ways would be the best to use these funds in order to support current and former foster youth.
One of the ways that was determined as beneficial was to provide direct stimulus payments to former foster youth so they could use the money where they see fit. Whether that be towards bills, food, transportation, or whatever else they wish, the payments were intended to support the young adults while also stimulating the economy. These funds were offered to eligible young adults who aged out of foster care and were between the ages of 18 to 26 as long as they applied before September 30th, 2021.
Image: Advance Local
I received a stimulus check of $750 on May 24th and I used it to pay bills and pay down some of my debt. I am a behavioral specialist, which means I go into people's homes and work with youth and their families on improving behavior skills. This made me an essential worker so I kept working through the COVID shut down, but my hours were significantly reduced as many families were understandably uncomfortable with people coming into their home. I was extremely grateful for this money because I accrued some debt during the shutdown as my bills kept piling up while my hours kept decreasing. On September 30th I received another $500 stimulus payment which I was again very thankful for as it came just in time to be able to help with rent and other bills.
Unfortunately, the aid for youth between the ages 23-26 has expired, but former foster youth who are 18-22 may still apply for direct stimulus payments up until June 30, 2022. Eligibility requirements include being between the ages of 18-22, but not yet 23 by June 30, 2022, being a resident of Iowa, or having aged out of Iowa’s foster care system, and having been involved in the child welfare or juvenile justice system. When submitting an application, youth must provide their social security number in order to verify eligibility. The youth have the option to either have their payment directly deposited into their account, in which they will need to provide banking information, or they may provide their address to have a check mailed to them.
My advice to youth who have aged out of foster care is to take advantage of these resources provided for you. Your peers have worked very hard to advocate for these pandemic relief funds in order to support those who aged out of foster care. Everyone has been affected by this virus in one way or another and you deserve this financial buffer to ease the burden caused by Covid-19.