Get involved

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

Regular readers of this column are fully aware of my disgust with governmental attempts at aiding citizens of the United States (and non-documented residents) who may be hurting.

My general view is the politicians, bureaucrats and staffs of most governmental organizations – with the exception of perhaps a few at the local level – do what they do for the glory, fame, re-election, big money, or a paycheck, depending on their position in the pecking order.

We citizens – again, in my view – are just as much to blame, for we are “too busy” leading our own lives to become directly involved. It is far too convenient to borrow money from our grandchildren to serve up the pabulum that passes for compassionate caring from the government while we spend our lives in pursuit of not happiness, but idle keeping-up-with-the-Jones exercises.

The liberals look at conservatives or libertarians like me and accuse us of being heartless, not compassionate and so forth.

When is the last time you saw a liberal bureaucrat taking the time to change a geriatric’s diaper? Or invite a person from the street into their home to clean up and get fresh clothes?

No, it is called compassion to delegate this responsibility to some hired individual whose paycheck is borrowed from generations yet unborn.

A liberal bureaucrat actually touching or smelling a desperate person in need is unthinkable.

To be completely blunt and frank about it, and still try to keep this column at a family audience rating, what we do in this country in the name of compassion parceled out by governments strikes me as being about as adequate as seeking matrimonial bliss from a worker in the world’s oldest profession, paid by the hour.

Real compassion for the hurting in our society is not something that can be bought, no matter what the politicians of any ilk may say.

This brings us to foster children and their needs.

There are about 400,000 to 500,000 foster children in this country. My wife, sadly more than me, has a real heart for these lives. I have helped out some, but she has carried the load.

Together, in 2006, we did attend the required classes and go through the background checks, drug testing and so forth to become foster parents, but about the time we finished the process, I spent six months in the hospital with cancer. But we (she mostly) still try to help.

Let me tell you what I know about foster children. In the state where we live, Georgia, the police have the final say when children must leave a home. Often, this is in the middle of the night. Often, because of the shortage of foster families, no one is available to take them in.

The state, in such cases, has contracts with hotels and professional workers to place these children in a hotel overnight with paid workers, two per room, to stay with them. That is just one of the horrors of foster care.

Teenage children in foster care, at least here, cannot get driver’s licenses, for legally foster families are not allowed and the government will not provide them with auto insurance.

Foster children of any age are allowed to be two places – in school or with their foster parents. It's hard to develop social skills when you cannot stay over at a friend’s house, go on a date without your foster parents along, and so forth.

But the biggest cruelty awaits foster children on their 18th birthday. For on their 18th birthday, all support stops.

If a friendly family is not there to help them, they spend the first night after their 18th birthday on the streets – and every night after that until, through their own limited skills, they can figure out something else.

In about half the cases, however, of the 27,000 foster children who “age out” in this country each year, they will soon be back under the care, custody and control of a governmental agency – in many cases, the penal system. For it is about half the aging out foster children who soon end up in jail for theft, drugs or prostitution.

The total foster child population of a half million kids is a small part – less than 1/6 of 1 percent – of the total U.S. population. However, 13,500 per year going to jail equals 135,000 inmates in 10 years.

Against a total federal and state prison population of roughly 1.5 million, this is 9 percent of the incarcerated.

There is a new effort afoot to try to deal with all the issues of foster care. It is a faith-based initiative, so far active only in Oklahoma and Georgia.

It is called the 111 Project (you can easily find it on the web). I have just been introduced to it, and it looks OK. However, I suggest you check it out for yourself.

Why 111? The idea is to have one family in each church take in one foster child – one church, one family, one child.

Solving this important problem is as easy as this when we all work together.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.