Brandi Grayson on Housing for Young Adults After Foster Care

Frederica Freyberg:
In other news, a new transitional living space on Madison’s north side would house young adults that have aged out of foster care, a population at high risk for homelessness. The program is part of the Urban Triage Unhoused Youth Initiative and is the first of its kind in Wisconsin. CEO of Urban Triage Brandi Grayson joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Brandi Grayson:
You’re so welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It’s a long time seeing you. Well, being on your show, that is.

Frederica Freyberg:
So this would be for 18 to 21-year-olds. What are the needs of these young adults who have aged out of the foster system?

Brandi Grayson:
Well, you know, when we have youth aging out of systems, they’re usually without parents, families, or supports. So the needs are a lot. A lot of them still need support with developing the readiness skills to be on their own, whether it’s financial planning, learning how to negotiate a lease, what it means to be a tenant, tenant rights, how to budget, how to enroll in school, how to navigate systems, and really how to deal with the trauma of being in a system, feeling abandoned, and not having supports and services. I would say that’s the biggest one, is actually the trauma in supporting youth with just learning the tools and the skills to navigate the emotional impact of being alone in the world.

Frederica Freyberg:
So given that this would be the first of its kind in Wisconsin for this kind of living space, are those needs that you just described currently being met in the state?

Brandi Grayson:
I don’t know about the state. I haven’t done much research, but I would say no. There are programs that have resources for folks who are aging out of foster care, but not enough. So it’s kind of like let us give you a tote full of dishes and essentials, but there’s no peer support or navigation support, there’s no rental assistance, there’s no case management, there’s no mental health services attached to that. Youth, like everyone else in our community, really are forced to piece together supports by going to different organizations, which then leads to trauma, which then leads to hopelessness, which leads to homelessness and leads to all kind of desperate acts on the side of youth.

Frederica Freyberg:
So we were talking about that, that it — high risk for homelessness. What are the outcomes for young adults, if they’re not having these kinds of needs met as you describe? How do they go from, you know, being in a foster care situation to homelessness?

Brandi Grayson:
I mean, you — I mean, most 18-year-olds today aren’t ready to be on their own, right? I have young adults, children, and they lived with me until they were 20-something or they went off to college and they still required support, financial, emotional and mental support. So we have young folks aging out with none of that, right? So I guess — I don’t know how to answer that, really, because it’s so — it’s so traumatic for them. So it’s like so many layers, and if you don’t have your basic needs being met, you automatically become subject to sex trafficking, drug use, gambling, having sex with people just to have a home or, you know, putting yourself in situations that are dangerous because you’re just trying to survive. Desperate times require desperate measures, and that’s really what youth respond to, right? Criminal activities and such that they’re forced to do because they have no resources, they have no home, they have no food, those kind of things.

Frederica Freyberg:
So this is described, again, as a transitional living space. What can people who come to live there expect in terms of what they’ll see there?

Brandi Grayson:
Yeah. A lot of support, right? So we’ll have overnight support. That person will act as a mentor to the youth that’s in the home. We will have peer support specialists come in during the day. We’ll have navigation support specialists, housing folks come this during the day, so it will be fully staffed during the day, and then we’ll do what we call our supporting healthy families work group, which is the trauma recovery. Supporting folks in developing the personal leadership and personal development skills to navigate systems, helping them build the analysis of systems and really help them detach from the feelings of inferiority or feeling like they’re to blame for their situation as a young person and then we’ll connect them to job placement readiness programs and we’ll place them in permanent housing with rental assistance once they’re ready to move on on their own. So they can expect holistic support.

Frederica Freyberg:
How many people do you expect to move in and when does it open?

Brandi Grayson:
Well, the house is like 12 bedrooms. We found that there’s some issues on the third floor that has to be mitigated so we’re limited now to bedrooms, I think we’re going to start with five youth. And hopefully a third floor will be able to open up soon. Our contract is effective with Dane County April 1st, so that’s when we actually begin to do the work. We’ll start the first 30 days with designing the house, renovating it. And then the next 30 days, recruiting for staff and then hopefully by the third or fourth month, 120 days into the contract, we can start enrolling youth into the program.

Frederica Freyberg:
That is great news. Brandi Grayson, thanks very much and thanks for your work.

Brandi Grayson:
You’re so welcome. Thank you.