More than one in three young adults exiting Colorado’s foster care system end up homeless within three years. Lawmakers are trying to change that with Senate Bill 82. 

If passed, the bill would create a housing voucher and case management program for foster youth, providing housing security for around 100 people.

The program would provide $1.09 million in housing vouchers and $1.44 million in case management services annually to 18- to 26-year-old Coloradans who are homeless or at risk of being homeless, and who were formerly involved in the foster care system. Voucher recipients would contribute to paying for their housing, but not more than 30% of the total costs.

“Youth that are in foster care need that additional help,” said bill sponsor Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton. “18-year-olds coming out of stable family situations, they’ve got that network behind them. They’ve got those resources, that family. These youths don’t necessarily have that. … They need this.”

Nationally, an estimated 50% of homeless young adults were once in the foster care system. After aging out of the system at 18, approximately 25% are involved in the criminal justice system within two years, 50% are unemployed by the age of 24 and, of women, 71% are pregnant by the age of 21, according to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

Keaton Sheagley entered the foster care system in Pueblo at 10 years old. Sheagley said when he aged out, he didn’t have the resources or skills to survive on his own. He didn’t know how to set up a savings account or establish credit, let alone how to find housing support.

“Foster youth are being deprived of the basic support that is required to live successful and prosperous lives,” Sheagley said in written testimony to state lawmakers. “We deserve the same opportunity to live a rewarding and lucrative life.”

Sheagley, 24, said he is now a foster parent himself, caring for two children in order to “help other young people not make the same mistakes as me.”

Shelby Costello said a social worker connected her to a housing voucher at 21 years old, through the nonprofit Mile High United Way’s “Bridging the Gap” program. She’s had the voucher for around six years now.

“It has given me a new chance at life,” Costello said. “Those first four years of being out of the system were by far the most traumatic years I’ve ever experienced in my life. I was in and out of homelessness, in and out of dangerous situations, and I’m honestly surprised that I survived.”

Costello now works with the with the state Office of the Child’s Representative and Colorado Poverty Law Project, saying “none of this would be possible if it wasn’t for that stability that Bridging the Gap has provided me with.”

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously approved the bill Thursday, advancing it to the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration.

Though no one voted or testified against the bill on Thursday, Sen. Jim Smallwood, R-Parker, questioned spending money on starting a new program to support homeless youth, arguing that the state should simply invest more in existing programs.

Colorado currently uses two federally funded housing voucher programs, said bill sponsor Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, D-Arvada. However, Zenzinger said the existing programs are geared towards adults and have very limited access, with months- to years-long wait lists. They also do not include the case management services included in SB 82.

“We need to do better,” Zenzinger said. “It’s not just about the money, it’s about taking a vested interest in the children that are our responsibility as wards of the state. They belong to us. They are Colorado’s children, and we are currently failing them.”