employment

Where were you when you turned 18?

I was a senior in high school, celebrating the chance to finally call myself an adult. My family threw me a big birthday party complete with grilled chicken on the barbeque, grandma’s homemade pie, and plenty of presents. I had worries about which university I would choose or how prepared I was for fastpitch try-outs. What was definitely NOT on my mind was homelessness.

When a foster child turns 18, they are welcomed into adulthood with a notification that they are utterly on their own. Their foster family no longer receives benefits to house them. If the foster family is kind and able, the family will voluntarily agree to care for the foster child until he or she graduates high school, but not even half are so lucky.

According to a 2004 study by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), only 50 percent of foster youth graduate high school or earn a GED. The study goes on to say that within the first year of turning 18 years old, 57 percent of foster youth were unemployed. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that on average, only 23 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 19 years old are unemployed. Therefore, a foster child is more than twice as likely to be unemployed than a child not in foster care within the first year of adulthood.

Without an education, employment, and traditional family support, many foster youth end up on the streets. Not only is it unfair to the foster child to be forced out of their home when they turn 18, it also creates a major roadblock to their economic survival. I can’t say it any better than the DSHS study, which concludes by saying, “Foster youth need more concrete services in the areas of daily living skills, skills in obtaining housing, employment and education to help them transition successfully to independence.”

Jobs in wind power, solar energy and other "green" fields show signs of continuing to grow despite the recession, Kate Ramsayer reports for the Bend Bulletin. Some of the state-identified "green" jobs aren't what one might attach to loving the earth, though. For example, the biggest 2008-2010 forecast increase, 68 percent, is for "community and social services."

So-called “green” jobs account for 3 percent of employment in Oregon and pay an average of about $15 an hour, says a new state report. An uncritical look at the report that appears to be excerpts from it rather than an actual news report ran in the Statesman-Journal in Salem. The report by the state’s Workforce & Economic Research Division defined green jobs as those that increase energy efficiency or produce renewable energy; prevent, reduce or mitigate environmental damage; clean up the environment; or provide support to workers in those categories. The top “green” jobs make one wonder about the rankings – carpenters, farmworkers, truck drivers, hazardous materials removal workers, and landscaping and groundskeeping workers. As for what constitutes a green job, “We realize our definition is broad,” the report’s authors wrote.