Every year, more than a thousand kids age out of foster care in Texas.
HOUSTON — The City of Houston has been working on opening a super housing hub to help people experiencing homelessness for months.
In the meantime, there’s another initiative to help homeless youth scheduled for this weekend. The Building Futures: Foster Care & Youth Housing Summit 2026 aims to combat the housing crisis for foster kids aging out of the system.
Every year, more than a thousand kids age out of foster care in Texas. State statistics show that within three years, 40% of those aged-out foster care kids are homeless, incarcerated or end up dead.
The Burton and Burton Real Estate professionals LLC is hosting the summit this Saturday at the DeLuxe Theater from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
One of the panelists for the event, Dr. Valerie Jackson, founder and CEO of Monarch Family Services, started out as a foster parent.
“I decided around 2011 that I would start the foster care process myself personally,” she said. “I adopted my daughter in 2012, and I was inspired after her adoption to create more opportunities for children to be able to have permanent homes. And so, I developed Monarch in 2014, as a permanency agency, just focusing on adoption and permanency.”
Dr. Jackson is speaking at the event in hopes of addressing the urgent housing needs for young people aging out of foster care.
“It is life-changing, in a sense,” said Dr. Jackson. “These kids on Houston’s streets are aged-out foster youth.”
After adopting her daughter, Dr. Jackson took in two boys, who later became her adopted sons.
“I took Ethan in, and then, 2021, Noah, had already been through 17 foster homes and at least five full adoptions. He was going to be adopted through my agency with a family, but the family dropped him off at a mental hospital and decided not to proceed forward with him. So I went to pick him up and brought him home with me,” Dr. Jackson said.
Dr. Jackson doesn’t want to romanticize being a foster or adoptive parent, but she describes the task as a selfless act.
“I think what a lot of people think is, ‘I’m going to save a child and they’re going to be happy.’ I am going to be thankful to you, but that is a fairy tale. The reality is, is that every day this journey becomes increasingly about who you are as a parent, as a person, as someone that has committed to the healing of this child,” Dr. Jackson said.
hat’s why Dr. Jackson is encouraging people interested in collaborating with housing developers, real estate leaders, social service agencies and more to come out to the summit to learn how they can help.
“For the children, we want to give as much opportunity as possible through support so that they can live out the life that they desire,” said Dr. Jackson.
Event organizers stress the foster care-to-homelessness pipeline is a crisis we must interrupt, and it starts with you.
“The ability for them to be happy, healthy and thrive. So, rewarding to be able to give them that now,” said Dr. Jackson.
Click here to learn more and to register for the event.
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