When Marlon Saechao tells his story, describing a childhood marred by addiction, instability and abandonment, he doesn’t cry until he gets to the part where he was briefly homeless as a young adult.
Saechao was 21 and struggling to finish college when he was kicked out of the house he was renting in San Jose. With no family to fall back on, he found himself sleeping in his car — a plight that’s disturbingly common among the thousands of young people in California who, like Saechao, have aged out of foster care.
“You just feel so unwanted,” he said.
Saechao is now a cheerful 26-year-old set to graduate from San Jose State University next spring with a marketing degree. He has quickly become a star at the public relations firm where he’s interning and is full of ideas for businesses he wants to start.
Success stories like Saechao’s remain far too rare. In California — where nearly 60,000 children are in foster care — more than a quarter of former foster kids experience homelessness, according to a recent University of Chicago survey of 23-year-olds. They’re also far less likely than their peers to graduate college. One study based in the Midwest found less than 3% of former foster youth received a four-year degree by age 26.
Policymakers increasingly are turning their attention to the issue, devising new safety nets to help catch these young people before they end up on the streets. After launching a first-in-the-nation basic income program for former foster youth, Santa Clara County recently extended the pilot that gives $1,000 a month to 72 eligible young people. The state followed suit this month, setting aside $35 million for pregnant mothers and young people who recently left foster care.
“That’s freaking huge,” said Savonna Stender-Bondesson, director of coaching programs for Pivotal, a San Jose-based nonprofit that has helped Saechao and other foster youth with education and career opportunities. “I’m hoping so much we’re going to see a lift in people being able to maintain and persist in their postsecondary education because of it.”
Pivotal provides coaching, networking and internships, and 58% of participants earn some sort of postsecondary degree, Stender-Bondesson said.
But while Saechao’s story highlights the potential of these interventions to help turn someone’s life around, it also shows the incredibly difficult road many of these young people face.
When teens in the foster system turn 18, they generally have to move from their children’s group home into a transitional home for adults — potentially upending their life and college plans, especially if the new home is a lengthy commute from their chosen school, Stender-Bondesson said. If a teen is living with a family, he or she may be kicked out after turning 18, she said. Young people can continue to receive stipends for a few years, but it may not be enough to rent a home, Stender-Bondesson said.
She estimates more than half of the young people enrolled in Pivotal have been homeless at some point.
Saechao grew up in Sacramento, bouncing from place to place with his mother and older brother. His mom, who had him as a young teen, was an alcoholic and struggled with her mental health, experiencing delusions when she drank, Saechao said. One night when Saechao was 7, the police brought his mother home. They said she had been acting erratic and warned the family to keep her inside. To prevent her from leaving and potentially hurting herself, Saechao helped tie her up with rope and duct tape.
After that, Saechao and his brother were whisked into the foster system. Their mother died when Saechao was 21.
Saechao was raised in four foster homes, mostly in Santa Clara County. When he turned 18 and graduated from Mt. Pleasant High School in San Jose, his foster mom told him he had to start paying rent. Hurt that she no longer seemed to see him as part of the family, Saechao opted to move to Fremont with his brother instead. But it ended up being a toxic living environment, Saechao said, and he couldn’t focus on his community college classes.
Saechao eventually moved with his brother’s ex-girlfriend into a house in the Alviso district of San Jose. But Saechao cut his work hours so he could focus on summer school, and fell behind on rent. His landlord kicked him out.
Out of options, Saechao ended up sleeping in his car and showering at the gym — a low point he rarely talks about.
“I just felt so embarrassed,” he said, fighting tears.
Saechao soon found lodging with a friend and began the slow, hard work of pulling his life together. He read and internalized a self-help book about building better habits — a gift from Pivotal– and embraced therapy. He brought his grades up and transferred to San Jose State.
This summer, Pivotal scored Saechao an internship at the San Jose-based marketing firm PRxDigital. On his second day, his boss told him he’d be working on a pitch to try and land a big new client — plastic surgery and dermatology clinic Aesthetx. It was a perfect fit for Saechao, who, because of his own struggles with acne and acne scarring, dreams of starting a skincare company. He nailed it, and PRx got the client.
“He’s doing a fabulous job,” said Terry Downing, vice president of PRx.
To top it off, Aesthetx offered Saechao a personalized plan to treat his problem skin — a service that would usually cost tens of thousands of dollars — for free.
It’s likely there will be more struggles ahead. Saechao is just scraping by financially and sometimes has to rely on the San Jose State food pantry. But to Saechao, his upcoming skin treatment is about much more than eliminating pimples.
“They’re getting rid of all of my old scars,” he said. “I feel like the old scars are the past. It’s almost like a new chapter.”
