United Friends of the Children was founded in 1979 by Nancy Daly Riordan to address the unmet needs of Los Angeles County’s foster youth – a most vulnerable and underserved population. Today, UFC provides support services to more than 2,000 current and former foster youth each year, working to provide them with the opportunity to finish high school, find housing, attend college and build the skills to support themselves. The organization’s programs address the most tangible needs of foster youth while also encouraging them to explore issues of identity, trust, self-esteem, communication and emotional well-being.

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LOOKING BACK: THE ORIGINS OF TRANSITIONAL HOUSING FOR FOSTER YOUTH

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that there was ever a day when services were not available to emancipated foster youth, but it was 1999 before the Foster Care Independence Act was passed, legislating federal financial support for former foster youth.

United Friends of the Children is proud to have been a partner in creating the first transitional housing program in the nation – in 1996. The idea came from one woman who started asking what was happening to youth as they transitioned from foster care. The answer was unsettling at best and when she realized that no one was tackling this issue in the United States, she decided to do something about it.

That woman was Sandra Rudnick, UFC’s Board Chair from 1993 to 2001. The program was Bridges to Independence, currently known as the County Transitional Housing Program. It took a unique public/private partnership between UFC, the Department of Children & Family Services, the Community Development Commission of Los Angeles County, the Weingart Foundation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to pull it off. Today, the County Transitional Housing Program is one of the largest in the nation, serving over 240 youth per year. Perhaps even more significantly, the idea of transitional housing has taken hold. In Los Angeles County alone, a wide array of organizations have created transitional housing programs that provide over 1,100 beds for former foster youth.