The U.S. Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, is helping launch a program in Garfield County to help people in foster care find housing when they leave the system.
The Garfield County Housing Authority will run the "Foster Youth to Independence" program. It will work to reduce homelessness among young adults 25 years or younger who are in, or recently left, the foster care system.
The county's housing authority will partner with the the Colorado Department of Human Services to refer young people to the program and determine if they are eligible for assistance.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates more than 20,000 young people age out of foster care each year. The National Center for Housing and Child Welfare estimates about 25 percent of those 20,000 young people experience homelessness within the first four years of leaving the foster care system.
"No young person who grows up in foster care should experience homelessness once they set out on their own," HUD Secretary Ben Carson said. "The foundation of a stable life is stable housing, and this initiative will allow local housing, working child welfare agencies and homeless planners, to focus this housing assistance to those young people who need it most."
Regional HUD Administrator, Evelyn Lim, will be in Glenwood Springs on September 23rd to announce the award of the new "Foster Youth to Independence" program to Garfield County.