{"id":208399,"date":"2019-08-12T13:30:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T18:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=208399"},"modified":"2019-08-13T13:54:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T18:54:03","slug":"single-father-fostered-50-young-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/single-father-fostered-50-young-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the single NYC foster dad who has housed 50 young men in 12 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Once you come into my home and you’ve been with me and you’ve been here, you’re my kid for life.”\u00a0Guy Bryant has provided foster care for 12 years to young men who have aged out of the system in his hometown of New York City.\u00a0At 61 years old, Bryant has fostered over 50 young men ages 18 to 21 in those 12 years, giving them all something they need: a home.<\/p>\n

Bryant explained to the Huffington Post<\/a>\u00a0that he grew up in a brownstone with his mother, aunts, and cousins. They were a generous family, always willing to help others. In his 20s, he began his career helping youth as a paraprofessional educator of the New York Board of Education. He then spent a decade as a house parent for a group home for boys. After that, he began work at the Administration for Children’s Services specifically working with young adults who have aged out of foster care. The program helps them with housing, employment, and health care.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Eight myths and misunderstandings about foster care\u2026 and the truth<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“It’s a big population. There’s definitely a need for the services because what happens is when a youth gets 18 years old, a lot of times they feel like, ‘I can do this.’ Unfortunately, what happens with youth that are in foster care, they carry that with them a lot of times and then they have no place to go and they end up in the shelters. Our kids can’t make it in the shelters. It’s a struggle for them,” he said. “[…]\u00a0Most of the kids, they can’t admit who they are. Their identity is lost somewhere between the home they’ve lived in and the other 10 foster homes they might have lived in.”<\/p>\n