Illinois must not abandon at-risk kids

Stacy was an unemployed, homeless teen mother with a newborn when she sought help from a youth service agency. Today, she lives in an apartment and is enrolled in school. The future for her - and her baby - looks bright.

But the prospects are much dimmer for tomorrow's teen mothers and other at-risk young people in Illinois, thanks to the state's catastrophic fiscal crisis.

Over the past two years, the state has cut funding for youth services, even though this funding represents less than 1 percent of IDHS's annual budget. Combined with the proposed cuts for FY11, youth services will have been cut by 30 percent in just three years.

We surveyed the DHS-funded youth service providers. Over 90 agencies told us more than 400 jobs have already been lost due to budget cuts, and at least another 475 more are anticipated to be lost if proposed cuts go through. That translates to more than 29,400 youth who will not receive services. Their problems do not go away when the programs do.

What will happen to these young people? What will happen to teens like Stacy and her baby when there is no one there to help them off the streets? The odds are they will become wards of the State, in the case of the infant, for possibly years to come.

Community-based youth services step in when youth are at risk. Community-based youth services do this at less than 5 percent of the cost of prisons, psychiatric hospitalizations, group homes, and foster care - services that are inevitable when prevention and early intervention programs are not available.

We must stop cutting the budget for youth services. Every dollar we save today, we will spend thousands more solving problems made worse by a lack of a safety net for young people.

Susan E. Cowen

CEO, Illinois Collaboration on Youth

Chicago