By Jayme Catalano, Director of Communications

Our investment in the young adults in our My First Place™ program echoes what many families already do to help their children become independent. At first glance, the cost of running a comprehensive program that provides housing, career coaching, and life skills support for current and former foster youth can seem surprisingly high. Yet when we step back and consider what it actually takes to support any young person into adulthood, those numbers start to look much more familiar. 

A 2025 Savings.com survey, reported by Yahoo Finance, found that parents who help their adult children provide an average of about $1,474 per month, or roughly $17,700 per year per adult child, mostly for housing, daily expenses, and bills. For many families, this support continues quietly for years—through rent checks, grocery money, and tuition payments that never appear in any public budget. 

Coming from the foster care systems, many of the young people at First Place do not have this safety net. When we pay rent, provide a grocery or transportation stipend, and provide support so they can stay in school and secure on-the-job training, we are offering the kind of practical support many parents also provide. Our cost per youth – about $5,500 per month – is not an outlier; it simply reflects what it truly costs to move from adolescence into stable adulthood in today’s economy. 

Our investment in the young adults in our program echoes what successful families already do to help their children become independent. The difference is that, in our case, this investment is visible, shared, and carefully structured—delivered by trained professionals rather than family members. 

WHY OUR MODEL IS INTENSIVE BY DESIGN 

Youth coming to First Place have often experienced multiple moves, school disruption, and trauma that would challenge anybody. Because of that, a light‑touch or short‑term intervention is rarely enough. Our approach is trauma‑informed, relationship‑based, and intentionally intensive. 

This includes: 

• Stable, subsidized housing, so young people can focus fully on studying for school and working without worrying about where they’ll sleep that night. . 

• Skilled, dedicated staff, with relevant degrees, specialized training, and ongoing coaching to support healing and growth, not just crisis response. 

• Smaller caseloads, which give staff the time to build trust, help youth navigate setbacks, and focus on education, employment, and life‑skills. 

Research on trauma‑focused interventions shows that doing this work well requires meaningful investment in training, supervision, and quality improvement. These are not extras—they are the ingredients that make it possible for young people to feel safe enough to take risks, try again after setbacks, and imagine a different future. 

THE HIDDEN COST OF DOING LESS 

For many youth leaving foster care, the “default” path without strong support is precarious: unstable housing, interrupted education, and difficulty finding and keeping work. National studies show higher risks of homelessness, underemployment, and incarceration for this group, all of which carry high human and financial costs. 

By contrast, the My First Place model acts as upstream prevention: 

• Increased employment and higher wages reduce reliance on public benefits and build a stronger local economy. 

• Stable housing and stronger incomes lower the likelihood of cycling through shelters, jails, and emergency rooms. 

• Better educational and employment outcomes help break the intergenerational patterns of involvement with public systems. 

Investing in young people at this pivotal stage does not erase the past, but it can profoundly reshape the future—for them, for their future children, and for the communities they call home. 

Supporting First Place for Youth is, in a very real sense, an opportunity to stand in the gap as that extended family—to offer the housing, guidance, and second chances that most of us would want for our own children. 

AN INVITATION TO BE PART OF THE STORY 

At First Place for Youth, we make a deliberate choice: to invest deeply rather than lightly, to prioritize lasting change over short‑term contact, and to surround young people with the kind of care that research—and common sense—tell us they need. 

The evidence is clear. When young people have stable housing, caring, skilled adults to walk alongside them, and real support to stay in school and succeed at work, they go on to higher employment, higher earnings, and more stable lives. 

If this vision resonates with you, we invite you to see our budget not as a barrier, but as an honest reflection of what it takes to give young people leaving foster care a fair shot. Your support helps ensure that the level of care so many families quietly provide to their own children is available to those who would otherwise face the journey into adulthood alone. 

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