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Help foster youth soon, young Austintown man urges Ohio Senate
YOUNGSTOWN
Gabriel Young wants the Ohio Senate to pass early next year a proposal to raise the age of emancipation for foster youths from 18 to 21, which cleared the Ohio House by a 91-2 vote Dec. 1.
“Pass it quickly because there are children that are in [children services] care now that this bill needs to be passed for,” Young said.
The delayed emancipation of foster youths will improve high-school graduation and college admission rates and reduce poverty rates in that population, he said.
Young, 18, of Austintown, has lived in 21 foster homes, and, for six years, ending at age 13 in an adoptive home, from which child welfare officials removed him and returned him to foster care.
His stays in any given foster home ranged from two weeks to one year.
Young, who is studying culinary arts at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center in Canfield and has a 2.9 grade-point average, works part time as a cashier at a Youngstown-area McDonald’s.
The Mahoning County Children Services Board pays his apartment rent, and he supports himself on his wages and financial assistance from his adoptive mother.
Three months ago, Young was elected president of the Mahoning County Children Services Youth Advisory Board.
On Oct. 15, he was elected president of the Ohio Youth Advisory Board, which advises the Public Children Services Association of Ohio.
His financial challenges became apparent when Jennifer T. Kollar, CSB’s public information officer, was unable to reach him for 10 days to arrange a Vindicator interview while his phone service was shut off due to his inability to pay that bill.
“It comes down to the point where, you know, what’s more important? Do I need my phone, or do I need to pay my electricity bill?” Young asked.
“Emancipating and trying to keep my grades up and work and do all these other things has been a hard challenge for me,” Young said.
Young has accepted an offer of admission to Sullivan University in Louisville, Ky., where he intends to earn a bachelor’s degree in event and tourism promotion.
After he finishes there, he wants to go to law school, become a lawyer and concentrate on civil-rights law, he said.
One of his most-unsettling experiences was running away from his adoptive home, being truant, and returning to school because he was hungry.
His adoptive father called the school principal and told him he needed to pick up his son, pack the boy’s bags and enroll him in a residential rehabilitation facility designed to prepare him for reunification with his adoptive family.
“It kind of made me feel helpless or hopeless,” Young said of the manner in which that occurred.
“It essentially made me devastated. I went through a state of depression for about six months, with suicidal attempts,” Young recalled.
“He’s overcome a lot of obstacles, and it’s just very inspirational,” said Kollar, who met Young for the first time and heard his story for the first time on the day of a recent Vindicator interview.
“To those of us that have no idea about what youth in foster care face, he’s able to articulate that in a very understandable way,” Kollar said.