The Texas government that raised Justin “Prince” Hayward placed him in group homes instead of a family and left him struggling to access food and housing when he aged out of foster care as a young adult.
It also failed to support him through a key rite of passage in a sprawling suburban metropolis: getting a driver’s license.
But a Texas law passed last fall aims to change that. Under statewide rules currently being written, tens of thousands of current or former foster youth up to age 26 and those who are experiencing homelessness will be eligible for free driver’s education and other benefits.
“Having a driver’s license can be a real game changer in terms of helping to improve outcomes and reducing the likelihood of homelessness or unemployment or incarceration,” said Sarah Crockett, public policy director for Texas CASA, a statewide membership association of local court-appointed special advocate programs. The group pushed for the new legislation to help youth in foster care or those experiencing homelessness get licensed through driving schools. Formal driving schools are not required in Texas, but it is often the only option for youth or young adults without a parent who has a car to teach them to drive. The schools can be expensive as well, costing as much as $650, Crockett said.
Before he got his license, at age 22, Hayward had secured a job as a package handler for UPS. But the workload was heavy, and his shifts sometimes ended at the rude hour of 3 a.m., when Houston buses no longer ran. At times when he couldn’t get a ride from a friend or co-worker, he took the miles-long walk home.
A year and three attempts to pass the driver’s test later, Hayward got the license that shored up his fragile link to independence and to supporting himself as an adult.
But it was no small feat. Growing up in a residential treatment center, you don’t have too many adults lining up to lend you a car, Hayward said.
So, his mentor was the one to cover the testing fees and offer up his Mercedes Benz for the Department of Public Safety road test.
“I was able to obtain something that a lot of people, a lot of us, take for granted,” Hayward, now 26, told the state Legislature last year. “But that same something is something that people like me — who age out of care and being homeless — can only dream about obtaining.”
The personal testimony may have moved lawmakers in this state of 268,597 square miles to act. Senate Bill 2054 expanded a 2019 law that already paid for licensing fees through age 20. The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) is currently writing the administrative rules for the new measure.
A commission spokesperson said in an email to The Imprint that the new offering will be available by late summer.
“Transportation is a primary challenge to gaining and keeping a job, particularly for those already experiencing barriers,” Press Officer Angela Woellner said. “By lowering barriers to driving, TWC hopes that participants will be better able to gain and maintain employment. Additionally, a valid driver license is a requirement for many jobs, and this program will assist participants in gaining access to those jobs.”
Texas has funded the program through donations that state residents can make voluntarily when they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses. Crockett said more than $400,000 was raised in the first several months following passage of the 2019 bill. Nearly $2 million has been collected since 2020, according to the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
Funds must be available to cover driver’s license fees, but can also be spent on driving classes, practice time and testing fees. Since the funding is based on voluntary donations, it is not clear how much will be raised each year, or how many individuals can be served.
In 2021, Crockett estimated nearly 16,000 current and former foster youth and more than 26,000 youth and young adults experiencing homelessness could qualify for the benefit.
A more ‘normal’ coming of age
With its recent initiatives, Texas joins a patchwork of other states looking for ways to help foster youth become drivers. These efforts can have positive results far beyond that one common milestone of young adulthood, by providing a more normal coming of age for young people raised in government care and custody.
“The simple act of driving a car is too often unobtainable for youth who grow up within the foster care system. The simple steps of obtaining a driver’s license, learning to drive, and purchasing a car can present insurmountable hurdles to foster youth,” states a 2020 report by Lucy Johnston-Walsh, a clinical professor and director of the Center on Children and the Law at Penn State Dickinson Law.
Johnston-Walsh studied the issue after encountering a county policy in Pennsylvania that banned her client Lara Hollinger, then an 18-year-old foster youth, from car ownership. In 2017, according to an account published by the prominent Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Hollinger and Johnston-Walsh brought their concerns to a local judge and argued — successfully — that the policy limited a young person’s independence and penalized them for circumstances beyond their control.”
In her report, Johnston-Walsh describes why the government owes these young people the help.
In 2014, she notes, Congress passed the federal Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, that includes a provision titled “Supporting Normalcy for Youth in Care.”
“The law represents the first time the federal government has attempted to define what ‘normalcy’ should be for foster youth, by signaling that foster youth should have similar life experiences as their friends who are not part of the child welfare system,” she wrote in a 2018 report.
Teenagers in a family, for example, would get the chance to spend the night with friends, go on out-of-town trips and learn to drive — and so should foster youth. The law created a way for caregivers and foster parents to allow “developmentally appropriate activities,” without needing the court or a child welfare agency to approve them.
Early driving experiences are one such “seminal step towards adulthood,” Johnston-Walsh states.
Yet obtaining driver’s permits and licenses are a particular challenge for foster youth. Foster parents may not be able to provide behind-the-wheel training, or to pay for it. They likely can’t get anyone to help pay for insurance, and requirements like having a parent or guardian sign applications and producing a birth certificate can present insurmountable obstacles. Teens living in group homes, like Hayward, have an even tougher time.
Florida has been a leader in reducing these obstacles for foster youth. The Keys to Independence program in that state started as a temporary pilot program in 2014 and in 2017 became permanent. Run by the nonprofit Embrace Families, the program reimburses youth and their caregivers for driver’s education and at least six months’ worth of insurance and has helped more than 1,000 kids obtain their licenses, said project manager Lisa Padua. The state provides $800,000 in annual funding for participants; additional funding of $650,000 approved in 2022 now covers eligible college students through age 23 as well.
“One of the normal rites of passage of a teenager is getting a learner’s permit and a driver’s license,” said Gerry Glynn, chief legal officer for Embrace Families, adding that foster youth should have the same opportunities.
Padua and Glynn are also part of an initiative called Paving the Way, which provides technical assistance to other states and tribal agencies interested in developing similar programs. They are currently working with Delaware, Kansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia and Maine.
Getting out on his own
Driver’s education and money to pay for it are important, but for a minor, the legal and other aspects of insurance can also be an obstacle — who will pay and who will take financial responsibility for the young driver? Foster youth cannot always join a family plan and getting individual contracts with insurance companies can be cost prohibitive, Johnston-Walsh reported.
Chris Mouton, now 20 and in extended foster care in Texas finally got his driver’s license in March.
He had been trying since at least 2018, he said in an interview with The Imprint. Though there were multiple factors that impeded his progress, Mouton said his inability to get insurance was the main reason he had to wait; his previous foster mother, who was raising four teenage boys at the time, said she couldn’t afford it. That sometimes made it hard to hang out with friends and have the social life many teens take for granted.
Texas requires that all licensed drivers be insured and 16-year-old males are generally the most expensive demographic to cover, especially under an individual policy. Insurance costs fall as teens get older. The licensing process, at least in Texas, gets easier, too. While younger would-be drivers must prove they have completed a lengthy driver’s education process, at 18, Texans need only complete a six-hour course and pass the driving test.
Once he moved into a dorm as a student at Prairie View A&M University, Mouton finally got his license with help from Cori Davila, his court-appointed special advocate. Davila let him use her car for the driver’s test and he paid for his own insurance.
“Chris finally got out on his own,” she said. “There was no one holding him back, I think that’s what finally did it.”
Sara Tiano contributed to this report.