When I was 16 years old I entered foster care. Foster care provided me with clothes, a roof over my head, an allowance, people who cared for me. It gave me a structure I didn't have anywhere else. But one day when I was 18 years old, it closed up. All of a sudden I was on my own—no family, no monthly check in the mail, and no Medicaid card. I had no money to pay the doctor. I had no place to live. I was sleeping at the homes of friends and teachers, or in Metro stations. Once I even slept in the emergency room of hospital. It was warm and safe.

I couldn't find shelters for teens, and even when I did, most of them only offered temporary refuge. Like 20,000 other U.S. teens each year, I had "aged out" of the foster care system and found myself without financial resources or the support of a loving family to guide me into adulthood. Yet, even without parents or a permanent place to live, I graduated from high school.

Then, I found Project LIFT (Living Independently for Tomorrow), a transitional living program sponsored by Residential Youth Services in Alexandria, Virginia, which provided me with food, shelter and support. With their help, I got a job and learned to live independently. This year, at age 19, I was even invited to speak at the White House, representing other young people like me. I was delighted to hear the First Lady, Tipper Gore, and Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala acknowledge that the states and federal government should be doing more to help foster youth like myself.

Too many teens emerge from foster care without permanent or stable connections to family or other caring adults. From balancing checkbooks to filling out job applications, we are at a loss. I was fortunate to find a program to help teach me the lessons in life that many parents teach their own children.

Not all of us are so fortunate. A recent study showed that 12 to 18 months after leaving foster care, half of the young people who aged out were unemployed, and a third were receiving public assistance. While there are programs in each state that independently address needs like housing, jobs, education and health care, there is little or no coordination of services for youths aging out of foster care—either while in care or after they leave.

It isn't enough for states to provide services piecemeal. There must be an organized system to help foster care youths develop the skills they need to live independently. Otherwise, more teens aging out of foster care will become homeless, jobless and isolated.

To address this issue, Congress is considering the Foster Care Independence Act, a bill that would double the funding for the Independent Living Program, improve medical assistance to youths up to age 21 who have left foster care, and allow increased support to help youths with housing. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the House Majority Whip and a foster parent himself, was instrumental in persuading the House to pass the bill on June 25. In urging passage, he said, "We must empower state and local governments to cut bureaucracy with increased flexibility, and enable them to provide the kids in our foster system with a transition system that actually prepares them to live as independent, functioning, productive members of society." I couldn't agree more. The U.S. Senate will pass a similar bill, including a plan to let offer health care to kids like me through Medicaid.

When we talk about independent living, we are actually talking about interdependence. No young person can survive without a network of support. If policy-makers and community leaders want to make sure that young people leaving care are better prepared to face the world, they need to provide supports like medical assistance and housing. Aging out of foster care shouldn't mean being totally on your own.

The end of foster care cannot mean the end of a community's caring.