Imagine being emancipated at the age of majority—no more curfews, chores or tedious rules. At the same time—no more free meals, guidance or someone to pay the bills in a pinch.

That's what happens annually to an estimated 13,000 to 20,000 youth across the nation who "age out" of the child welfare system. "One of the hardest things that we face in our society is the situation of foster kids becoming totally and completely independent at age 18 or 19. They can't lose a job. They can't drop out of college. Or they literally can end up homeless because they have no assets. They have no bedroom in their parents' home," says Peter Degre, director of the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services.

Our nation's legal system grants these adolescents their "unholy freedom" at age 18, though there is little to support that arbitrary determination of adulthood. The United National General Assembly defines "youth" as extending through age 24. And most families don't expect children to be independent until at least their mid-twenties. One might conclude that the "cut off" at 18 applied to foster kids occurs when the youth is little more than a teenager and is sorely unprepared for independence.

Degre sums up the plight of these emancipated youth as "the final tragedy of kids growing up without the legal commitment of families for life."

When the care of a child falls to the state's child welfare system, money from the federal budget guarantees maintenance payments for these children in foster care family homes, private non-profit child care facilities or public child care institutions to cover the costs of food, shelter, clothing and daily supervision. Health care is provided through Medicaid. Then these payments and services screech to a halt when the child finishes high school, reaches majority or the courts decide to emancipate.

"Basically, they orphan you at the age of 18," says Alfred Perez, a former foster youth who now works with the California Youth Connection.

Marylee Allen, director of the Children's Defense Fund child welfare-mental health division, recalls that for years there had been very little attention to adolescents in care as a separate group. Then several surveys conducted during the mid 1980s focused on the teenagers who were growing up in the foster care system. Once the research illustrated the problems faced by this group: the high degree of homelessness, out-of-wedlock births and dependence on welfare, she says, "the special needs of the adolescents finally came to the fore."

Allen became one of the advocates working with Congress to establish the Independent Living Program in 1985 to assist these youth who would eventually be emancipated from the foster care system. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York emerged as an architect of the program, partly because of the data which showed a significant number of homeless shelter users in New York City had recently been discharged from foster care. Congress appropriated $45 million annually for the years 1987 and 1988 to permit states to provide independent living services—basic skills training, education initiatives and employment initiatives—to youth age 16 and over who would soon become ineligible for maintenance payments.

Over the years the federal share of the program has increased to $70 million annually, though states are required to provide 50 percent matching funds for any federal funding that exceeds the original $45 million funding level. California accounted for $12.5 million of those funds in 1995; New York followed with $11.6 million. On the other end, there are states which don't even access all the money earmarked for the services.

The emancipated youth remain a very troubled population. When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracted with Westat, Inc. in 1989 to carry out studies of the program's effectiveness, the report found that of the 34,600 youth departing foster care during the study period, only 31 percent received services from their state's Independent Living Program. Westat also found that 2 1/2 to 4 years after leaving foster care, many of the youths were encountering problems adjusting to life as an adult. Only about half had completed high school, a little less than half had jobs and only about 40 percent could stick with a job for at least one year. An alarming 60 percent of the females had given birth. Fewer than 1 in 5 were completely self-supporting and 25 percent had been homeless for at least one night.

A more recent portrait of children about to leave care is more encouraging. Mark Courtney and other researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted interviews in 1995 with a cohort of youth exiting out-of-home care in Wisconsin. Over 85 percent of the respondents stated that they had been educated about personal health care, and trained job seeking and decision-making skills. However, 39 percent said their training came mostly from foster parents; only 32 percent credited specialized independent living training programs.

Responding to growing concern and awareness, the president's fiscal year 2000 budget proposes $280 million over five years in new support for youth who leave foster care at age 18 without any permanent relationships. Funding for the Independent Living Program would increase by 50 percent, with an investment of $175 million over five years. An additional $50 million over four years would create new competitive grants to states for financial support as the youth move into the workforce. Under the proposal, these kids would remain eligible for Medicaid until age 21 to avoid a sudden loss of health insurance at emancipation. The Transitional Living Program, which provides competitive grants to community-based organizations to residential care facilities for homeless adolescents, would increase from $15 million to $20 million for FY 2000.

"We do believe that it's time to take a hard look at these kids, and their needs, and our policy response to them," says Carol Williams, associate commissioner of the children's bureau at HHS.

Further, HHS is conducting its first evaluation of the Independent Living Program. Williams asserts, "One of my impressions is that the states are starting to focus more and more on education for these kids. But those are things we'll be able to determine once this evaluation is done."