Good afternoon Chairman Hoekstra and Ranking Member Hinojosa. I am Mai Fernandez, the Managing Director of the Latin American Youth Center. It is a great honor to be before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. It is even a greater honor to be able to give you some of our history with regard to helping runaway and homeless youth in the District of Columbia and how the Federal programs assisting these youth can be strengthened.

By way of background, the Latin American Youth Center was founded in 1968 and was incorporated as a non-profit 501(c) 3 in 1974 for the purpose of serving "at risk" immigrant Latino youth. Since we opened our doors, the agency has grown from a small grassroots recreation center primarily for Latino youth, to a nationally recognized, community-based, multicultural youth and family development organization. Our mission, is to support youth and families in their determination to live, work and study with dignity, hope and joy.

The Latin American Youth Center is organized into three program divisions: the Education Division – that works to keep youth that are in school, in school and to prepare them for college; the Social Services Division that ensures that youth live healthy life styles and live in safe homes; and the Works Skills Division preparing youth that have dropped out of school, to receive a GED and obtain a job.

Under our Social Service Division, the Latin American Youth Center has a housing team. Through the housing team’s services the Latin American Youth Center provides transitional and long-term housing and support services to approximately 60 children and youth ages 0 to 21. These children and youth are abused, neglected, runaways and/or homeless. We provide these services through a network of programs, including: Street Outreach Program; The Basic Center Host Home Program; the Transitional Living Program; and the District of Columbia Foster Care Program.

We came about running these groups of program out of necessity. About 15 years ago we were seeing a growing number of Latino boys and Latina Teen mothers and their babies that did not have stable homes. In the case of the boys, many of them were trying to fit into the American Culture that often clashed with the Latin culture of their families. Consequently, many of them either ran away from their parent’s homes or were thrown out of them. In the case of the teen mothers, many of them were also turned away from their families and found themselves in the precarious situation of having a baby and no place to live.

The District of Columbia abuse and neglect system should have found foster homes for these children. However, at that time, the District had no licensed foster homes where the parents spoke Spanish. Moreover, the foster families that existed did not receive cultural competency training that would allow a Latino youth to feel more comfortable in the home. Consequently, few, if any Latino youth were ever placed in the D.C. foster care system.

In order to get these youth off the streets, we turned to the Federal Government. In 1992 we received our first Transitional Living Program grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. With private funds we were able to buy a town house in the District. The HHS grant funds provided us with the programmatic dollars needed to house 10 boys in the home for up to 18 months at a time. Shortly after, we were awarded a Basic Center grant to house teen mothers and their babies in the homes of local families. With these funds we were able to hire staff to supervise the girls and pay local Latino families to house the girls and their babies. In addition, about five years ago we were awarded a Street Outreach Program grant that allowed us to hire street outreach workers that pick youth off up the street and provide them with emergency shelter and assistance.

In all our housing program, the youth receive case management. In other words, there is staff assigned to each youth to ensure that the youth is in school or in a GED program; he or she has a job and he or she has access to health care. Additionally, all our staff are bilingual so the youth can easily communicate their needs and have their needs met. Additionally, traditional Latino food is often cooked for the youth and both typical American and Latin American holidays are celebrated in the programs. Program counselors work vigilantly to reunite the youth with their families. However, while a youth is with us we want him or her to feel comfortable and to be in place where he/she can prosper.

I should also note, that four years ago the LAYC became a licensed foster care provider for the District of Columbia. Our goal is to train Latino families in the Washington metropolitan area to become foster families. Now our foster care program works in conjunction with our program funded by the Federal Government. This ensures that no youth or child falls through the cracks and that they will receive the care and love the need a crucial moment in their lives.

With regard to improving the programs, there are a few suggestions I would like to make. First, the Basic Center grant only allows us to house a young girl and her baby for two weeks. As you can imagine very little progress can be made in trying to unify a teen mom with her family or finding permanent house in two weeks. At a minimum, I would suggest that you extend the length of stay for the Basic Center grant to six months. Secondly, it is very difficult to hire professional bilingual staff. Applicants that speak Spanish, that are qualified to do the job, often go to better paying jobs. Programs that provide services to language minority youth should be provided extra funds to hire and retain qualified bilingual staff. Third, local abuse and neglect systems often do not have the capacity to handle Spanish speaking clients – social workers are not bilingual and Spanish speaking foster care families do not exist in the jurisdiction. The Federal Government should provide incentives to local jurisdictions to hire bilingual staff and create language and culturally competent programs. Lastly, I am making a personal plea for the Latin American Youth Center. Last year, we raised private funds to create a state of the art facility for our boys in the Transitional Living Program. The home is beautiful – you would be proud to have your own kids stay in it. That same year we reapplied to HHS for transitional living program funds to staff and operate the home. Despite that our proposal was ranked and placed in the category for funding, for the first time in 10 years we did not receive TLP funding because so many other organizations had applied around the country. The Latin American Youth Center refused to close down the program because the effects of the closure would have made 10 boys homeless. This decision, however, has placed us in a very difficult financial situation. We are currently reapplying for funds to pay for services next fiscal year. My suggestion, however, is that preference be given to programs that have a history of operations. Not only, do we have a track record of success but we can be mentors to newer programs.

Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before you today. I would also like to invite you to come visit us and see our housing programs in action. The Latin American Youth Center is a 15 minute cab ride from Capitol Hill and we always give a warm welcome to our visitors. Muchas Gracias.