“I am very concerned about what would I do if housing is not in place come Monday, Dec. 2. After depending on the system for 21 years of my life, it’s scary,” he wrote.
According to the New York City Independent Budget Office, 40 percent of foster care children nationwide enter homelessness upon aging out of the foster care system. NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has not published figures on the homelessness rate within its system.
A Life in Foster Care
Jamel was born with both drugs and alcohol is his system. He was diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, quadriplegia, and ADHD, among other ailments. When he was two months old, the city placed him under the care of his grandmother, who had 10 children of her own. At 12, he was molested. At 15, he was drugged and raped. That same year, his grandmother suffered a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. With all that was going on at home, he found it hard to concentrate in class. He dropped out of high school. Trouble came in 2005, when he was incarcerated.
Incarceration turned out to be a positive thing for him. “It gave me the opportunity to refocus,” he said. “Incarceration for me was getting away from a dysfunctional household. It gave me peace.”
Since then, Jamel has been in four foster homes. Now he is receiving help to manage his schedule, is seeking employment, and is on track to enter college. Some foster care kids might be satisfied with that. But Jamel wants to see the system change—not for him, but for current and future foster children.
Jamel’s Crusade
Jamel has an earnestness about him, and his thick glasses seem to magnify this aspect of his personality. Dressed in a suit and toting a briefcase messy with papers, he makes his rounds at City Hall, hoping to catch a word with an elected official or to deliver a letter to the mayor. He has four to five meetings a week. He e-mails ACS and city authorities with hard-hitting questions about their services. One such e-mail included a list of 23 questions seeking to clarify statistics in an ACS report. ACS never replied with answers.
In early November, Jamel e-mailed the Commissioner of Children’s Services to request a meeting with him. The commissioner promptly replied, “Thanks for the invite. I think it would be better if we talked with you as a member of the Youth Advisory Board.”
The Youth Advisory Board consists of children currently and formerly in foster care. Their job is to make recommendations to the ACS, but Jamel says so far, few if any of their suggestions have been implemented. If Jamel’s work seems frustrating, it is. “I’m disturbed of the lack of concerns they share with the youth,” he said.
“There’s a disconnect,” Jamel said. “As a system, they have the responsibility to hear from the people they serve. I have spent my whole life in foster care—who can tell the story better? I’m not here to complain, but to make suggestions.” And that’s the attitude he carries with him. Jamel’s no revolutionary. He often says that he’s not trying to re-rail the system—only to make much-needed changes to the way it operates.
The way he sees it, when the system fails to provide thorough services the first time around, it incurs more costs to itself—those kids who get into trouble as a result of neglect remain a burden on the system. “It would be an exponentially greater cost to the child welfare system, to the corrections system,” he explained.
Thus he has proposed a set of reforms, called the Jamel Robinson Child Welfare Reform Initiative. His proposed reforms include an independent advisory committee, a system that tracks individuals who have left the system, and background checks on potential foster parents.
With the help of his partner agency, No Doubt Inc., Jamel has been able to establish the Jamel Robinson Foundation and schedule speaking events and meetings with politicians and organizations. He’s casting his net wide, working with a multitude of children’s organizations to bring about change.
As busy as he is between advocacy and his personal life, Jamel insists that he is not overwhelmed. “I still have fun, I have dinner with friends,” he said.
