FSHO becomes federal law

Quotes from Ruthie White of the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare:

• It is downright poetic that on the darkest, coldest day of a very difficult year, the Winter Solstice, Congress passed the Fostering Stable Housing Opportunities Act #FSHO - bringing light and hope to youth who are growing too old for foster care and have no family to whom they can safely return home. 
  
  
• Written and spearheaded by foster youth and alumni from ACTION Ohio in partnership with NCHCW, #FSHO eliminates homelessness (and the fear of being homeless) for all older youth in care.  Youth who are interested in signing a lease for their own apartment and partnering with a local Public Housing Agency for three years to receive income-based assistance in paying their rent. 
  
  
• Perhaps more importantly, all youth who participate will be able to enroll in HUD's Family Self-Sufficiency Program (#FSS) which rewards tenants for increasing their income.  And by volunteering to enroll in FSS, youth will extend their voucher from three years to FIVE.  
  
  
• It would be impossible to overstate the amount of work and heart that all of the youth and alumna put into designing this legislation and the unwavering leadership exhibited by Lisa Dickson, Jamole Callahan, Doris Edelmann is a recipe for how to usher in wholesale child welfare reform.