| Last year when Veronica Gill was 17, she was forced to drop out of high school because she was living on her own and had to get a full-time job to pay rent and buy groceries.
Gill ran away from home because she was being physically abused. She ended up in the child welfare system, but she says she still wasn’t adequately taken care of. In one of her foster homes, Gill was called "foster girl" instead of her actual name. She says her foster mom often stayed out all night with her boyfriend. Gill needed a winter coat at one point and she told her social worker, but the social worker didn’t help her get one. Eventually, Gill told him she no longer wanted to have child welfare status because she was so disillusioned by the system.
"They were totally ignorant," says Gill. "Really all it was doing was dragging me down."
Gill is one of many young people in Calgary under the age of 18 who have fallen through the cracks – "and the cracks are pretty huge," says Nicole Rainey, the team leader at Raido House, a residence for teenagers who don’t have child welfare status and can’t live at home. A recent report done for McMan Youth, Family and Community Services Association found that there are at least 354 homeless youths in Calgary. Rainey suspects the figure is higher.
Rainey says in some cases, teenagers have never had any involvement with the child welfare system before they end up homeless, but others either opt out of the system or lose their status because they’re considered to be unco-operative. Rainey says the child welfare system is often too inflexible to deal with troubled teenagers who have problems conforming to rigid rules.
She says there are very few organizations that exist to help kids without child welfare status and the kids face a myriad of challenges. "They feel really hopeless."
Rainey says such teenagers often end up getting into drugs or are forced into having sex in exchange for a place to stay because their options are so limited.
Gill knows what it’s like to feel abandoned by society. After deciding she no longer wanted to be part of the child welfare system, she ended up at a homeless shelter and then at Raido House.
When she decided she wanted to move out on her own, Gill says she called at least 50 landlords, but none were willing to rent to anyone under the age of 18. She finally found a basement apartment with the help of Raido House employees. Then Gill was unable to get her phone hooked up because the phone company wouldn’t let her sign a contract due to her age. She also needed glasses, but couldn’t afford them. Kids under the age of 18 who don’t have child welfare status don’t get any optical or dental coverage. They also don’t qualify for social assistance or for low-income housing, and it can be difficult for them to obtain ID or register for school without help from their parents.
Gill says she used to love school and has always dreamed of going to university but she soon realized she’d have to work full-time to survive.
"I was a geek. School was everything to me. That’s why I’m upset," says Gill. "I lost everything I had planned."
She’s hoping that now that’s she’s 18, she’ll be able to qualify for low-income housing so she can afford to complete high school and then go on to university.
Ruth Copot is an executive manager at Children’s Services. When told about Gill’s situation she responded, "If she was receiving assistance and it wasn’t what she wanted she made a choice of going out on her own."
Copot says Children’s Services does provide services to young people "who are vulnerable and in need of protective services." However, she says youth have to work within the system.
"We have limited resources and the resources we do have have expectations," she says. |
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