SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE EDITORIAL
Closer to home - and to each other
A community rallies in Napa to help construct a new center for foster youths
Friday, November 23, 2007
To an outsider, California's foster care system can seem like an intractable cause for despair: so many kids, so many problems, so little money.
It's amazing to realize how many possible solutions lie within the four walls of a Victorian house in the city of Napa. Nearly every Saturday morning for the past 20 weeks, hundreds of current and former foster children and the local adults who have taken an interest in their well-being have been working here.
Their goal is to renovate the old building so that it will be a suitable home for VOICES (Voice Our Independent Choices for Emancipation Support), Napa's wildly successful program to serve current and former foster kids on the verge of adulthood.
For the past two years, we've written about VOICES around Thanksgiving. The youth-led program is still a first in its field - a foster care program run by foster children, for foster children. While we're ecstatic that the governor and state legislature have approved many significant foster care reforms in the past two years, there are limits to the positive influence that a government bureaucracy can have on young lives. The former foster youth at VOICES are convinced that they know what foster children need most - and they're proving it.
We've watched VOICES grow from an experimental project with eight founding members into a seasoned program with a $550,000 annual operations budget. It's helped more than 200 young people get housing, transportation, employment, and a path into the educational system. It's watched many of its founding members graduate themselves, onto bigger jobs or college. And it's outgrown the Napa office park that it was based in - meaning that it was up to those foster children and their local allies to roll up their sleeves and start painting, sanding, and re-plumbing the new space that another non-profit organization, the Aldea Family Foundation, generously consented to share with them.
For many of VOICES' clients, this house is the closest thing they will have to a home. VOICES' staff realizes this and has made a point of renovating the house to reflect their clients' reality.
"There were all kinds of things to think about - like having a washer and dryer for people to wash their clothes in, because some of the youth are homeless," said VOICES' 20-year-old assistant director, Mitch Findley. "We know that we have to have a storage cabinet for them too. And we knew it would be important to have a kitchen sink that was way bigger than the original one, because there's going to be a lot of cooking that goes on here."
A washer and a dryer. A storage cabinet. A spacious kitchen with tiled floors and cafe tables. Warm-toned paint on the walls and fixtures. Couches and computers in the basement. Small, private spaces for one-on-one meetings or the chance for a foster child to enjoy a moment of peace and privacy. These additions and substitutions will make the house feel less like an office - "These are kids who have had more than enough institutions in their life already," said program director Leslie Medine - and more like an oasis of escape that just happens to have helpful programs and services.
But the renovation plan came with a price tag of $75,000; far more than the staff of VOICES could afford. Their answer? Get donated materials, and do everything yourself. With the material help of local merchants - and the physical help of local contractors and builders - that is exactly what they are doing. The staff plans to have the house ready for a grand opening on December 5.
"This has been a very energizing job," said Steve Carlson, a volunteer builder from Berkeley. Carlson has helped direct the renovation and guided the young people through complex jobs such as pulling down walls and ripping out a kitchen. "These kids are against the wall, and I'm in awe of what they've done and what they're willing to take on in the world. It takes that stereotypical view of youth and blows it up."
For the young people who make up VOICES, rebuilding the house has been one more opportunity to inject some structure into lives that have often been sorely lacking it. Though the house isn't yet complete, both staff and members have been using it - and abiding by the new rules that come along with having an expanded space.
"We have assigned chores," Findley said with a smile. "For the staff, our pay gets docked if we don't do those chores. And now there's one monthly cleaning day, where we close the doors for the morning and scrub everything."
Though it may seem unlikely that the chance to clean and do hard physical labor would draw young people into the project, Medine said it's had just that effect. The rebuilding project has become far larger than its stated mission. Student volunteers from Napa high schools heard about it through their friends and activities.
"A friend of mine was a foster kid, and she was part of this group," said 18-year-old Katy Bushey, a student at Napa High School, who was sanding doors at the house one Saturday. "She told me that foster kids could come here and get what they needed to succeed. And I thought that was great."
"We've had between 30 and 60 kids here every Saturday," Medine said. "Many of them have been from VOICES, but we've also had volunteers who aren't foster kids. Having a purpose really helps. There's nothing like this in Napa, where kids can go and feel like they're contributing something."
And the project has helped local adults find helping opportunities, too - help not just for the foster children, but themselves. A VOICES staff member knew the program director at P90, a residential recovery program for alcohol and substance abuse. Some of the men and women in P90 are skilled contractors - and all it took was an inquiry for them to agree to help out. The program director offered Saturday morning passes to interested volunteers, and many of them have shown up for multiple building sessions.
"It's been an adventure," said volunteer Mark Crocker. "And it's definitely been helpful in terms of my recovery. Helping other people, giving back - it comes back to you. It's nice to be able to teach the kids skills, to offer something positive."
Crocker added that all of the members of the VOICES staff had his phone number.
"A lot of these kids are in the position I was in at their age in terms of needing guidance," he said. "I don't want to see any of them go through what I went through when I was younger - or older."
Once the nails have been swept up and the paint cans put into storage, VOICES will continue its mission to help Napa's foster kids - and, hopefully, foster kids outside of Napa. For months, organizers in other counties have visited VOICES, hoping to tap into the staff's expertise in putting together similar programs. The young people who run VOICES are determined to help another county - when they find one that's ready for a VOICES program.
"The buy-in we had with this program can't be replicated," Medine said, and in fact she is correct.
Napa's civic leaders have supported the program since it was just an idea. Medine was able to quickly find eight dynamic young foster children to get the program off of the ground. The local business and non-profit community have contributed everything from time to money to expertise to keep it afloat. Then there's Medine herself, a one-woman whirlwind whose energy and enthusiasm are crucial to this project. Though the project is run by the kids, her experience has been key to helping them figure out how to make things work. For two years she's worked tirelessly on everything from balancing the books to making sure that the kids stay in line. So many elements combined to make the perfect storm that is VOICES that it seems overwhelming to hope for the same confluence again.
"The civic leaders have to be willing to take the chance on it. A county has to be willing to let the project be youth-led, and it's got to be run by a non-profit, because if it goes into the system it'll die," Medine said. "It's a lot when you think about it."
But it's even more to think about the foster kids who've seen their lives turned around because of VOICES. Consider the story of Nick Murietta, for example. Murietta, 18, is VOICES' special projects coordinator. Before joining VOICES six months ago, he said, his "bad image" was one that everyone he knew believed in - including himself.
"I've been incarcerated seven times," he said. "I've been in recovery already. No one in my family is known for anything good in Napa."
For Murietta, change began to happen when he had to give a speech about VOICES in front of 200 people. "I was terrified," he said. "But it helped me turn around. I had to drop my image. And with the kids who come in here, I've got to be able to do the right thing so I can show them what to do."
How you can help foster youth: -- To learn how to donate money or materials for the VOICES project, go to www.onthemovebayarea.org. -- Legal Services for Children represents Bay Area children in dependency proceedings. To make a donation, go to www.lsc-sf.org/web/ get_support.html. -- Consider serving as a court-appointed special advocate. Advocates push the court to ensure a foster child is getting needed services. To learn more, go to www.californiacasa.org/ default.htm.
