by Cher Ofstedahl | Special to the Courier

An existential crisis threatens to force nonprofit foster family agencies supporting foster youth in California to close their doors.

Since 1966, Claremont’s Trinity Youth Services has helped recruit, train, and support families to care for foster children in their homes. If state leaders don’t act to stabilize the insurance market for nonprofits and provide funding to help nonprofit foster family agencies keep their doors open, as many as 90% of them could be forced to lay off staff or even cease providing family-based foster care as soon as October of this year.

The result would be devastating for children, particularly those with the highest level of needs.

Similar to the struggles Californians face with securing and affording homeowner’s insurance because of wildfires, many of the state’s 220 foster family agencies (who also facilitate adoptions for foster youth) are on the verge of losing their liability insurance, without which they cannot legally operate.

The insurance crisis is the last financial straw for many nonprofit foster family agencies that were already operating on a razor’s edge because costs of rent, staffing, and other operating expenses have soared while the state has cut support for these vital community-based organizations. The recent state budget agreement did not provide bridge funding for foster family agencies, forcing them to implement an 8.8% fiscal cut across all operations.

While Trinity Youth Services is not in immediate danger due to its affiliation with a national constellation of agencies, our agency does not have the capacity to take on the thousands of vulnerable children who will suffer if state leaders don’t act immediately. In Los Angeles County alone, more than 1,000 youth and the families caring for them will be without a safety net.

Caring for youth who have experienced abuse, exploitation, poverty, and racism can be intensely challenging, but also very rewarding. Without the intensive support foster family agencies provide, as many as 9,000 children and youth currently residing with families statewide will be in immediate jeopardy of being displaced.

Throughout California, there are devastating headlines of foster youth being housed in hotels, office buildings, and other inappropriate and unlicensed settings, because the number of families willing to step up and care for children with complex trauma — caused primarily by abuse and neglect — has dwindled.

I’m certain I speak for the majority of our peer agencies in California when I state we would love to be put out of business for the right reasons. However, California needs foster family agencies now more than ever. They ensure every child who has been removed from their family of origin for their well-being has a safe home with a certified resource family and the support of a team of qualified social workers, mental health professionals, and community partners to help them heal until reunification with family or a permanent placement can be arranged.

Foster family agencies have already begun closing their doors, and without action from state leaders, dozens more are poised to close in a matter of weeks. We are calling on Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration to stabilize the insurance market and provide bridge funding immediately to ensure our state doesn’t lose the community-based organizations that are absolutely vital to the state’s vision to improve child safety, health, and well-being.

Cher Ofstedahl is CEO of Claremont nonprofits Trinity Youth Services and the Children’s Foundation of America.