LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Board of Supervisors Tuesday will consider expanding its “Breathe” guaranteed-income program to provide financial stipends to more than 2,000 non-minor dependents in the foster care system.
In addition to the stipends, the foster dependents would also receive access to career and education counseling, financial empowerment training, housing and other programs as recommended by the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs’ Center for Financial Empowerment.
The Breath guaranteed income program began as a pilot project in March 2022, providing regular payments to 1,000 in-need residents.
Last year, the board agreed to expand the program to include 200 former foster youth transitioning out of foster care.
“While Breathe’s initial expansion supports 200 former foster youth, the continued support of transitioning foster youth can provide essential financial stability during such a critical and pivotal time in their lives where data has demonstrated the risks youth exiting care face, including homelessness to justice system involvement,” according to a motion by Supervisor Holly Mitchell.
According to the motion going before the board Tuesday, the state’s Flexible Family Support funding provides the county with the ability to expand the program. The FFS funding is subject to criteria when it comes to providing stipends to youth, meaning the recipients will have to use the money for specific purposes, defined as “extracurricular and enrichment activities that are designed to enhance the foster child or non-minor dependant’s skills, abilities, self-esteem, relationships, and overall well-being and healing.”
The motion calls for financial support to be provided to two groups of people in the foster system between ages 18 and 21:
— The first group would be 1,000 people aged 18 and 19, providing them $500 monthly stipends for 18 months with access to career and education counseling, financial empowerment training, and other supportive services; and
— the second group would be 1,000 individuals between ages 19 and 21 who are likely to age out of foster care during the 18-month program, providing them with $1,500 quarterly stipends, with the final payment provided in the quarter in which the person turns 21. They would also be provided access to counseling and other supportive services.
The motion also calls for a $4 million increase to a contract with Strength Based Community Change — the program administrator — to support the implementation of the expansion and evaluate the program’s impact and how recipients are using the funds. It also calls for a roughly $15 million expansion in the contract with MoCaFi, which distributes the debit cards used in the program and also distributes the stipends to those cards, to cover the costs of the payments.
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