For the past year, dozens of young adults who aged out of foster care in St. Petersburg have received an extra $500 each month to help pay rent, buy groceries, get to work or put something away for an emergency.
This month, the final payments are going out.
St. Petersburg used about $946,000 in federal pandemic relief money to provide 88 former foster youth with $500 a month for one year. Early findings presented Thursday to the City Council’s Youth and Family Services Committee show participants reported using the money for housing and utilities, transportation and food.
The city contracted with Ready for Life, a nonprofit that works with young adults transitioning out of foster care, to run the program. Participants also had access to financial coaching, counseling, peer support, parenting programs and practical help such as food, clothing and household goods.
Special Projects Manager Jess Riedel said the goal was to give participants an “economic floor” as they entered adulthood and help them attain and maintain stability.
Anonymous comments collected through program focus groups and included in Thursday’s presentation put that goal in more personal terms. One participant described the biggest benefit simply as stability.
“It means a lot that my life has been so the same,” the participant said. “And that’s been a blessing.”
The preliminary results also suggest some participants were able to do more than cover immediate expenses. About 47% of focus group participants said they saved some of the money, including for a car, housing costs or an emergency fund. Those who could not save generally cited higher utility and grocery bills or other expenses that had to come first.
One participant said the money helped cover education costs after losing financial aid. Another said it helped pay for health testing. A third said the grant helped fund several steps forward at once.
“I used quite a bit to start an LLC,” the participant said. “I used it to get myself into a technical program, move into a new apartment.”
The city does not yet have a final measure of the program’s impact. Ready for Life and its evaluation partner are still collecting final surveys and focus-group responses. A final report expected this fall will compare participants’ circumstances before and after receiving the money.
But with the last payments going out this month, council members were already asking Thursday whether the program could continue.
“The foster program, the $500 stipend, I don’t know how we can continue that,” Council Member Deborah Figgs-Sanders said. “If there’s a way we can tag those dollars, that is my first preference for those youth aging out of foster care.”
City Administrator Amy Foster said staff had explored whether disaster relief money could replace the expiring federal dollars, but that funding cannot be used for the Youth Opportunity Grants.
“We did look into that,” Foster said, calling the program a “shining bright light for our community.”
The program was paid for through the American Rescue Plan Act, which sent St. Petersburg about $45.4 million in one-time federal pandemic relief.
The program also illustrates a problem with one-time funding: Some investments, such as housing construction or equipment, remain after the money is gone. A monthly payment program needs another funding source to continue.
Council Chair Lisset Hanewicz said that distinction matters when governments use temporary money to start programs.
“The reality is once you start a program and you can’t sustain it, then the question is, would there have been a better use for that money that was more long term?” Hanewicz said.
She also said former foster youth are among the young people most vulnerable to setbacks as they enter adulthood, while still having years ahead of them for the right help to make a difference.
“Those children are at the highest risk,” Hanewicz said. “But they also have, I think, the highest opportunity.”
No funding source to continue the grants was identified during Thursday’s discussion.
For the young adults who received them, the payments provided a financial floor as they moved out of foster care. With the final payments going out, whether that support will continue is uncertain.
One participant described what that foundation allowed them to do.
“You know, Maslow’s hierarchy [of] needs, right?” the participant said. “If that grant can cover that food, water, shelter for me, I can get to that next step.”