The federal program designed to support America’s most vulnerable young people is still operating on rules written before smartphones existed, before social media, and long before today’s foster care crisis reached its current scale.
The Chafee Foster Care Program, created in 1999, has not seen a meaningful overhaul in nearly three decades. That means a system meant to support teens aging out of foster care is still governed by an era when The Sopranos had just premiered and Congress last seriously updated its approach to independent living support.
Now, that long period of stagnation is finally being challenged — and First Lady Melania Trump is stepping directly into the center of the fight.
She is scheduled to meet with the House Ways and Means Committee this week as lawmakers consider a long-overdue effort to modernize the program and address what many describe as a collapsing safety net for former foster youth.
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