A guaranteed income program will help Sacramento State’s former foster youth. Here’s how
The needs are as simple as they are daunting. Cash to buy groceries. Money for auto repairs. Funds for tuition, books and rent.
For former foster youth without the family, financial and emotional support other students can lean on, the road to a college degree can seem insurmountable.
But an innovative guaranteed income program by United Way Capital Region is changing that calculus for 10 students in Sacramento State University’s Guardian Scholars program for former and current foster youth. Beginning in May, the students will receive a $500 check monthly for a year through the program. The United Way’s Collegiate Guaranteed Income Program and its inaugural recipients were announced earlier this month.
The United Way’s Women United will fund the pilot program. Preparing foster youth for adulthood has been the Women United group’s calling card since its founding more than 20 years ago. Its members have raised more than $2 million for programs serving foster youth, say United Way leaders.
“Too often, students who were in the foster care system lack the financial and emotional support structures that many of their peers take for granted,” Sacramento State University President Dr. Luke Wood, said in a statement announcing the program. “This program will alleviate some of the financial burden, allowing our students to focus wholeheartedly on their studies and personal growth.”
Local United Way officials cite a 2020 California Youth Transitions to Adulthood, or CalYOUTH, study that outlines the challenges in clear terms.
One in four former California foster youth surveyed said they were homeless between ages 21 and 23. An additional 28% said they “couch-surfed,” bouncing from place to place without a bed to call their own.
According to the CalYOUTH study, nearly three in 10 former foster youth attending college would have qualified as food insecure by U.S. Department of Agriculture standards.
“Obtaining your degree isn’t easy. Doing so while under extreme life pressures, whether it be food, housing, transportation or family issues, makes that such a challenge,” said September Hargrove, a former foster youth, now Women United member and a Northern California community banking executive director for JPMorgan Chase.
“The hope is that this program will give these students a helping hand in dealing with those pressures,” she said.
Wood also knows the struggle intimately. A former foster child, Wood would later find academic success at alma mater Sacramento State and beyond. As university president, Wood has said he wants Sacramento State to have the largest enrollment of former foster youth in the nation.
Sacramento State’s mission, Wood’s life story and the capital United Way’s work on behalf of foster youth made the university a natural fit for the guaranteed income pilot, said Dr. Dawnte Early, president and CEO of United Way Capital Region.
“His story resonates deeply with the work the United Way has been doing for decades,” Early said in a statement, adding their shared aim is “to create an environment where these students can focus more on their studies and less on basic needs like housing, food and transportation.”
The year-long Sacramento State pilot is the capital United Way’s latest guaranteed income project. It follows an earlier Sacramento region program in 2021.
Additional rounds of funding in partnership with the city of Sacramento arrived in March 2023; and, again in November of last year with Sacramento County and Sacramento-based health and education equity nonprofit Sierra Health Foundation.
