By: Gabriella Rusek
Aging Out and Landscape of Instability
Each year, thousands of young adults leave the foster care system not because they have found a stable, long-term family, but because they have reached the legal age of adulthood. In federal fiscal year 2024 alone, 176,730 youth exited foster care (for a variety of reasons)[1], and more than 328,000 children remained in foster care nationwide.[2] While foster care is intended to be temporary, it often ends without reunification, guardianship, or adoption.[3] Instead, at ages 18 or 21, foster children “age-out” of the system and transition into adulthood without the support of a permanent family.[4] In 2024, 15,379 children exited foster care due to emancipation, another term for “aging out.”[5] This transition is not merely difficult; it is destabilizing. Between 31% and 46% of children who age out of foster care experience homelessness at least once by age 26.[6]
Housing instability rarely occurs in isolation. Federal transition data shows that many young adults who exit foster care enter adulthood without stable employment or postsecondary credentials.[7] According to the National Youth in Transition Database, by age 21 only 35% of surveyed youth reported full-time employment, while 25% reported part-time employment.[8] Although 70% reported earning a high school diploma or GED by age 21, education beyond high school remained limited.[9] These vulnerabilities do not fall evenly across populations. National foster care data indicates that Black youth comprise approximately 25% of youth in care[10], a proportion significantly higher than the general population.[11] Research further shows that young people with a history of foster care experience homelessness for a longer duration than their peers.[12] Elevated justice-system contact is also evident during this transition period: federal survey data indicates that by age 21, approximately 10% of respondents reported recent incarceration, and at the baseline of age 17, 26% percent reported incarceration.[13]
Instability as Structural Exposure
The significance of this data lies not merely in the prevalence of hardship, but in the way instability compounds during the transition to adulthood. Research indicates that homelessness after age 17 is associated with diminished “readiness” indicators at age 21, including lower rates of employment and educational engagement.[14] Young people who report housing instability during late adolescence are significantly less likely to demonstrate markers of economic stability than their stably housed peers.[15] These patterns suggest that housing insecurity during the final years of foster care acts as a destabilizing condition that affects multiple domains of early adult life.
Moreover, federal surveys likely understate the breadth of instability experiences by youth aging out care. The National Youth in Transition Database does not fully capture informal housing arrangements such as “couch surfing,” a common strategy in which young adults’ cycle through short-term stays with friends or acquaintances.[16] One national estimate found that by ages 23 or 24, nearly 28% of youth with foster care experience reported couch surfing after discharge.[17] Youth who age out also demonstrate high residential mobility, averaging more than two residential moves per year following exit from foster care.[18] Frequent mobility disrupts employment continuity, complicates access to education and services, and weakens connections to formal institutions.
Specific risk factors that increase the likelihood of post-discharge homelessness include prior runaway behavior, placement instability, engagement in delinquent conduct, and symptoms of mental health disorders.[19] These characteristics, often shaped by the foster care experience itself, elevate the relative risk of homelessness during early adulthood. When housing instability converges with limited employment, educational disruption, and prior justice-system contact, the transition out of foster care becomes a period marked by structural exposure rather than supported independence.
The Federal Framework and its Limits
Federal law recognizes that youth aging out of foster care require preparation for independent adulthood. Title IV-E of the Social Security Act provides federal reimbursement to states for foster care maintenance payments, administrative expenses, and training costs associated with eligible children in care.[20] Through amendments such as the Foster Care Independence Act and John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, Congress directed states to provide services designed to assist older youth in obtaining educational credentials, employment skills, and independent living preparation.[21] States may also extend foster care beyond age 18 and receive federal reimbursement for individuals who remain in care until age 21, provided the individuals are enrolled in school, employed, participating in qualifying activities, or unable to do so due to a medical condition.[22]
Yet the structure of this framework reveals important limitations. Although Chafee funds, as they are called, may be used to provide housing assistance, federal law caps the amount states may allocate to housing at 30% of their annual Independent Living Program funds.[23] This limitation restricts the availability of direct rental assistance at precisely the moment housing instability is most acute. Access to other transition services also remains uneven. National analyses indicate that only 22% of eligible youth receive access to employment or vocational programming, 28% percent receive postsecondary support, and fewer than 40% receive budgeting or financial management instruction while still in care.[24] Even where extended foster care is available, eligibility is conditioned on continued participation in education, employment, or approved activities.[25] As a result, the federal framework emphasizes preparation for independence but does not guarantee the material stability, particularly housing security, necessary to sustain it.
Targeted Reform to Stabilize the Transition to Adulthood
If instability during the transition out of foster care is both measurable and predictable, reform should focus on the point at which risk is greatest: the loss of guaranteed housing and structured support at discharge. Federal law already recognizes the need to prepare youth for independence, but preparation without stability is insufficient. Modest but targeted reforms could better align policy with the realities described above.
First, Congress should remove or significantly raise the 30% cap on the use of Chafee funds for housing assistance.[26] Housing insecurity is not a peripheral concern; it is central to the instability that shapes employment, education, and justice-system exposure. Allowing states greater flexibility to allocate Independent Living funds toward direct rental assistance would better reflect the documented relationship between housing stability and early adult outcomes.[27]
Furthermore, lawmakers should structure extended foster care to maximize participation rather than condition support on strict eligibility requirements. Although Title IV-E permits states to extend care to age 21, continued eligibility is contingent on employment, education, or approved activities.[28] For youth already experiencing instability, these participation conditions may operate as barriers rather than means of support. States should simplify reentry into extended care, reduce administrative hurdles, and ensure that housing continuity does not depend on immediate educational or employment benchmarks.
Finally, lawmakers should evaluate transition services not solely by their availability, but by actual access and uptake. National data indicates that only a minority of eligible youth receive employment programming, postsecondary support, or financial management training while in care.[29] Improving outreach, automatic enrollment, and continuity of case management during the discharge period would help ensure that services reach youth before instability compounds.
These reforms do not require a wholescale restructuring of the foster care system. Rather, they recognize a narrower principle: when the state assumes custody of children for years, it should not withdraw material stability at the threshold of adulthood without ensuring that basic housing and support structures remain in place. The empirical record demonstrates that aging out is often followed by housing instability, economic precarity, and measurable justice-system contact. Aligning federal and state policy with that evidence is not an expansion of obligation, but a response to documented risk.
[1] U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., Admin. for Child. and Fams., Admin. on Child., Youth & Fams., Child.’s Bureau, The AFCARS Dashboard: Preliminary FFY 2024 Estimates as of September 5, 2025 (No.32), 7 (2025), https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/2024-afcars-dashboard-printable.pdf.
[2] Id. at 4.
[3]Annie E. Casie Found., What Happens to Youth Aging Out of Foster Care?, Annie E. Casey Found. (Nov. 9, 2025), https://www.aecf.org/blog/what-happens-to-youth-aging-out-of-foster-care.
[4] Id.
[5] AFCARS Dashboard, supra note 1, at 7.
[6] Amy Dworsky, Laura Napolitano & Mark Courtney, Homelessness During the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood, 103 Am. J. Pub. Health 52, [PAGE CITE] (2013).
[7] U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., Admin. for Child. & Fams., Admin. on Child., Youth & Fams., Child.’s Bureau, Outcomes Data Snapshot: National, FFY 2020-2024, National Youth in Transaction Database, https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/nytd-outcomes-national-2024.pdf, (last visited March 1, 2026).
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Children’s Def. Fund, 2023 State of America’s Children Report: Child Population, https://www.childrensdefense.org/tools-and-resources/the-state-of-americas-children/soac-child-population/#:~:text=The%20demographics%20of%20children%20in%20the%20United,158%2C000%20Native%20Hawaiian/Other%20Pacific%20Islander%20children%20(0.2%25), (last visited Mar. 1, 2026).
[12] Child Welfare System, Youth.gov, https://youth.gov/youth-topics/homelessness-and-housing-instability/child-welfare-system, (last visited Mar. 1, 2026).
[13] National Youth in Transaction Database, supra note 5.
[14] Alaina Flannigan, Maia O’Meara & Aryaa Rajouria, Better Data on Homelessness Needed as Young Adults with Foster Care Experience Transition to Adulthood, Child Trends (Aug. 20, 2020),
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/better-data-on-homelessness-needed-as-young-adults-with-foster-care-experience-transition-to-adulthood.
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Amy Dworsky et al., supra note 6.
[20] U.S. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., Admin. for Child. & Fams., Child.’s Bureau, Title IV_E Foster Care Eligibility Reviews Fact Sheet, https://acf.gov/cb/fact-sheet/title-iv-e-foster-care-eligibility-reviews-fact-sheet, (last visited Mar. 1, 2026).
[21] Karla V. Mardueño, Fostered or Forgotten? Leveling the Playing Field for Foster Youth Aging Out of the Foster Care System, 62 How. L.J. 989, [PAGE CITE] (2023).
[22] Louisa Maria Portnoy, Improving Outcomes for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care by Increasing the Age and Quality of Care, 51 Hofstra l. rev. 1047, [PAGE CITE] (2023).
[23] Mardueño, supra note 19.
[24] Portnoy, supra note 20.
[25] Id.
[26] Mardueño, supra note 19.
[27] Dworsky et al., supra note 17.
[28] Portnoy, supra note 20.
[29] Id.
