In addition, the new program would be available to individual homeless adults, couples without children and families who could not get their children out of foster care simply because they did not have permanent housing.
Mr. Stein perpetuates the destructive myth that many people become foster parents "simply because they get extra income". The truth is that foster-parent stipends, which pay the cost of caring for a child 24 hours a day, range from $242 to $314 per month, depending on the child's age.
Some foster children simply withdraw and become antisocial in an attempt to escape their current environment.
I rarely thought about foster care simply viewing it as dysfunctional and someone else's problem.
Indeed, many foster parents simply cannot afford to provide all of the opportunities to their foster child; opportunities that help the child escape from their trauma, and opportunities to heal from their suffering.
When Kelly placed Andrew's present in front of him, wrapped in colorful and festive wrapping paper, our foster son simply stared down at it, then to us, and then back to the present.
An Indian prime minister belonging to a Hindu-supremacist party, they say, has fostered peace simply by "dropping by" the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for a couple of hours on his way back from Afghanistan.
"Much has changed over the past 130 years, but there are still vulnerable children in foster care who simply need someone who can always be there for them," said Barnardo's chief executive, Javed Khan.
(One young researcher, hunched over a petri dish, wrinkled her nose and wondered aloud whether the openness would foster collaboration or simply be distracting).
