Last year, IP covered journalist turned philanthropy expert Daniel Heimpel’s efforts to house a different population: foster youth transitioning to adulthood in Los Angeles. More than 1,000 kids age out of the foster care system each year in L.A., and a quarter of them wind up homeless for a period of time within their first few years of independence. Heimpel first got involved when he mentored a couple boys in the foster care system. He then founded a journalism nonprofit to cover child welfare, and more recently, a benefit corporation, Good River Partners, which is “synchronizing philanthropy and capital for social impact,” as the website puts it.
When last we spoke, Heimpel was working to create a social impact real estate fund to buy or build affordable housing for former foster youth in L.A. He had engaged local leaders and seven foundations to commission a study about creating such a fund. His goal was to move 1,500 former foster youth into apartments of their own within a few years. IP checked in with Heimpel to see how his efforts to help foster youth stay housed in L.A. have progressed this past year.
What’s new in the effort to prevent former foster youth from experiencing homelessness? Have you made progress on the fund?
Since last we talked, my goals have been to structure a financial vehicle that could generate adequate returns to support the acquisition and development of foster youth housing. The strategy on how to deploy private capital toward this end is now very well baked. But it’s still in progress, and just one part of what we’re doing.
What are your other efforts to help prevent foster youth in LA from aging out of the system into homelessness?
A big piece of our whole thesis is trying to ensure that the supports for foster youth are commensurate to the need these young people face. To that end, we’ve been working a lot on policy. At the state level, we were very active in a coalition led by John Burton Advocates for Youth, Children Now, and the California Alliance for Children and Family Services, among others. The coalition worked to ensure that foster youth ages 18 to 21 who are in a supervised independent living placement (SILP) got higher rates in this latest budget that was signed by the governor this summer. [A SILP is a popular form of housing for foster youth in this age group that provides a monthly subsidy they can apply toward housing they find themselves.]
The governor had promised to raise the rate, then reneged on this promise. It was, “You guys are going to have a change,” and then, “Whoops, we’re going to cut that out of the budget.”
The thousand or so foster youth in a subsidized independent living placement in L.A. County now get $1,206 in direct cash payments monthly. In 2027, that rate will go up to $2,228. We were very active in making this happen. This means that a significant portion of young people in this tender transition into adulthood can be competitive in L.A.’s brutal housing market. The impact of that budget change will be felt for thousands of kids in California.
Did you tap your journalism background to help get the word out about the need for this money in the state budget for these young adults?
I did. I wrote a piece for CalMatters on this when the governor, or maybe his underlings, made what I saw as a very cynical move to take this away. I was definitely going back to my old approach. I helped six other people, including a couple foster youth and some advocates across the state, write op-eds that were published, building on the same theme.
I also got some earned media coverage by sharing it with reporters and telling reporters about it. I’m not going to take credit for the whole thing, but we put teeth into the external communications so these kids weren’t forgotten about.
But even with more money, it’s still hard for these young people to compete in L.A.’s tough rental market without savings for a down payment, parents to cosign on a lease, or a credit history. What else are you doing to help?
Right, they still have those same issues. We want to get past that discrimination against them. This is the private financing goal, to get private dollars in, to set aside housing for these young people. We did a dine-around in May during the Mission Investors Exchange conference in L.A., which is like the Super Bowl of impact investing. We brought the most sophisticated impact investors in America and the region for a dinner and tour of an actual place where young people — many of whom experience foster care — are getting great housing, Los Angeles Room & Board’s Dunamis House in Boyle Heights. Some of the partners we’ve been with since the beginning hosted this dinner — Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, The Ralph M. Parson’s Foundation, Reissa Foundation — and a national partner interested in affordable housing, the Kresge Foundation.
I wanted practitioners of impact investing to see that they can make an outsized impact on preventing homelessness by investing in young people exiting the foster care system. And I wanted to take them to a place that is doing it beautifully. It’s such a cool place, Elle Décor just did a story on it. We showed them what was possible. We’re illustrating how you could do this thing.
Last year, we wrote about the study you spearheaded showing how affordable housing for foster youth could be a good investment. What’s happening on the research front?
We’ve started working with a group of nonprofits and an affordable housing consultant to do a similar study in New York City. We’re working with key partners to understand how to finance housing so foster youth there have a fair shot at success. And looking to do the same thing in the San Francisco Bay Area next. We’re in early talks with partners to do a feasibility study there.
So we’re winning on state policy; we’re informing the impact investing community about the need and opportunity to invest in housing for former foster youth, and we’re studying how to come up with novel financing instruments to end the foster care to homelessness pipeline in L.A. and beyond.
Why did you expand from L.A. to New York City and San Francisco, rather than staying focused on L.A.?
I’ve studied the system for two decades now. The housing precarity foster youth face is endemic to every urban environment in this country. While taking concrete steps to address this problem in Los Angeles, it’s natural to look to other regions to apply similar strategies.
Fighting homelessness is about taking people off the street and preventing them from ever finding themselves unhoused. Given the high prevalence of homelessness among foster youth, it’s about the best place to start.
