Former Foster Youth Progam
A Sense of Home strives to prevent homelessness by creating first-ever homes, a community of care, and supportive services for youth aging out of foster care.
50% of those struggling with homelessness are former foster youth. The homeless crisis can only end through prevention.
- Most ASOH participants are between 18-24 years old
- 87% are young women
- 52% are parents
- 93% are BIPOC (57% are Black, 26% are Latinx)
- 16% identify as LGBTQIA+
- 63% are low income
- 34% enrolled in school
A Sense of Home’s Unique Three-Step Pathway to Stability
Step 1 – Reducing Barriers & Support Securing Affordable Housing
- Agencies serving foster youth refer individuals to ASOH, where their housing and resource needs are immediately assessed upon intake.
- Youth with FYI Housing Vouchers are proactively connected to ASOH through LA County DCFS as part of our three-year homeless prevention pilot program, moving upstream to reach youth before they exit the system.
- ASOH reduces barriers to securing affordable housing by connecting youth to its trusted network of landlords who have 250+ available units throughout the County. ASOH also provides letters of recommendation to landlords and financial assistance for security deposits as part of our housing navigation services.
Step 2 – Creating a Launchpad for Success: The Home Creation
- Once the youth receive keys to their apartment, ASOH provides a “Home Creation,” turning their empty space into a fully functioning, emotionally stabilizing, and inspired home.
- Designed based on the youth’s unique interests and needs, a team of 15-20 volunteers and staff move in and set up the home with up to 300 donated items, all in 90 minutes. See all items.
- Donate your gently used items or please shop for our most needed items.
- During the Home Creation, youth receive resource navigation tailored to their short and long-term goals and spend time creating a vision board as they embark upon a new chapter.
- Volunteers at the Home Creation give the youth a sense of hope and belonging, including “Pay-It-Forward Ambassadors” whose volunteerism provides peer mentorship and builds lifelong community.
Step 3 – Ensuring Stability with Supportive Services and Caring Community
- After the Home Creation, ASOH provides ongoing supportive services to empower youth to continue an upward trajectory to better career, well-being, and educational gains.
- Serving as the “after-foster care community”, majority of participants state that ASOH is their main source for resources and community.
- Youth receive 1-1 resource navigation including access to free mental health counseling and referrals for health and wellness care, job placement and training, food, parenting support, education, legal services, and more. View ASOH’s Resource Network.
- ASOH provides regular educational opportunities for self-growth such as financial literacy training, empowerment workshops, parenting classes, and events
- Youth pursuing their educational goals can apply to The ASOH Scholarship, which awards 18 students with $20,000 annually to cover expenses including tuition, rent, transportation, and more.
- Youth who become “Pay-It-Forward Ambassadors” are offered unique professional development opportunities including workshops, advocating for policy change, and compensated speaking engagements.
- ASOH has no “age-out” limit. The average age of ASOH recipients is 23 years old. There is no age limit for initial application and there is no aging-out of ongoing supportive services for former foster youth or their children.
A Proven Solution to Ending Youth Homelessness
In Los Angeles County, more than 40% of former foster youth experience housing instability within two years of leaving care. In striking contrast, 94% of ASOH-supported youth remain stably housed one year after entering our program, and 80% maintain that stability four years later.
The Importance of a Home Creation for Former Foster Youth
- While homelessness is an obstacle a young person exiting foster care is challenged with, their entire lives have revolved around housing insecurity. For most young people who enter foster care, their parents’ challenges with housing or what happened in the “home” is why they entered the system.
- These young people endured deplorable living conditions, mostly due to poverty and/or mental illness, experienced by their parents.
- These conditions may involve infestations, dangerous animals, an absence of running water, heat, or bedding, or a single one-bedroom apartment occupied by 20+ individuals from multiple families.
- Housing issues may also involve co-located drug labs or gang territory, criminal activity involving deadly weapons, and all-night partying so extensive that children are unable to sleep.
- For most young people who entered and endured foster care, “home” is neither safe nor stable.
- These challenges often follow young people in the form of trauma and future difficulty obtaining housing.
- Often the most affordable housing may return the young person to the same neighborhood they once fled.
- Alternatively, even if housing is secured, furnishing the apartment, making it a home, and having the requisite resources to make it a lasting place to live is all but impossible.
- With these challenges so prevalent, A Sense of Home has become the gold standard for giving our kids the homes they truly deserve once and for all.
- When early environments were marked by instability or fear, the process of a “Home Creation” afford a deeply psychological positive experience that enables the occupant to relearn that a home can be safe, permanent, and nurturing.It is a crucial buffer against trauma, promoting resilience, For individuals with trauma histories such as Adverse Childhood Experiences, this nurturing new relationship with home helps rewire the brain from chronic survival mode to a state of regulation unlocking the body’s natural capacity for healing, repair, and optimal function. The positive and radical transformation of a “Home Creation” affords a new sense of place to unlearn negative patterns, set firm boundaries, and nurture a physical environment that soothes, and motivates all occupants.
- Environmental psychology has determined that people perceive themselves through the lens of their surroundings, influencing cognition, emotions, and self-identity. Our surroundings act as mirrors for our self-concept, where orderly spaces can promote internal calm, and chaotic settings may lead to stress, shaping how we see our identity and competence. Self-Congruity Theory suggests that our surroundings aren’t just a backdrop; they act as a mirror for our internal state. If we perceive our environment as beautiful, we weave the quality of our physical world into our own self-image.
- See more on the Science of Home here.
- Learn more on the significance of ASOH reducing barriers and creating opportunities for improved outcomes here.
The Power of the “Pay-It-Forward Ambassador” Community
- All ASOH participants are invited to pay-it-forward, empowering individual creativity and collective creativity that fosters an environment that serves to Illuminate and help others actualize their potential. Gaining agency from being a part of change, Pay it Forward Ambassadors (PIFA) become embedded in community and develop new connections to build their own network of support.
- PIFA enjoy special events where they gather to gain professional and life skills, receive access to resources, and most importantly grow their own community.
- PIFA are invited to use their voices to advocate on behalf of foster youth and shape legislation and policies affecting their peers.
- PIFA may also become Recipient Companions to serve as mentors to their peers, providing resources and enabling the cycle of support to continue at Home Creations and beyond. and ensure each recipient has access to the support needed to flourish.
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© 2026 Copyright A Sense of Home
Former Foster Youth Program - A Sense of Home