Employment experiences of homeless young adults: Are they different for youth with a history of foster care?

There are approximately 350,000 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are homeless each year in the United States and some were placed in foster care as a minor. The purpose of this study is to examine the baseline information and outcomes following an employment training program for homeless transitional youth. A comparison is made between those with a history of foster care (FC) and those without (NFC). At baseline, the FC had significantly more youth of African-American decent and significantly less Caucasian youth than the NFC. Additionally, the FC were significantly more likely to have mental health issues and current substance abuse issues than the NFC. Approximately 60% of participants from each group found employment within 3 months following the training and the mean hourly wage of all participants post-training was $9.27 ($9.55 NFC and $8.88 FC). Follow-up comparisons found that having a mental health issue most significantly predicted whether a youth found employment following the employment training program, even while taking into consideration foster care history and all other control variables. Hispanic FC youth had significantly higher hourly wages after controlling for all other variables when compared to Hispanic NFC youth.