Helping Very Low Income Young Adult

[RunningBum]

I also commend you for taking the chance and helping her. It sounds like a worthwhile risk, and could make a huge difference in her life.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Actually, I did not say do not get involved.... I just said to watch out for family dynamics....

It sounds like her parents are well off... they could easily afford to help her out, but for some reason has chosen not to

I would rather not post more details, but it is not a money issue at all, at least not on the parents end. I know enough there is fault on both sides, I just don't think homelessness is the appropriate consequence. Plus it is easier to be a good student, citizen, son or daughter, and employee when one is raised in a nurturing, emotionally and financially supporting, non-fragmented family.

DH and I agree we aren't going to sit at home at night watching Netflix in our house with the spare rooms wondering what park Sheila is at that night, and whether she is cold, hungry, being robbed or worse and having made no attempt all to step in and help.

 

[pb4uski]

Another alternative might be to join VISTA. DW served with them for a year between her Bachelors and Masters but I think they also take motivated young people without degrees and offer a living stipend during the period of service and a $5,500 scholarship for those who complete their service.

Each VISTA member makes a year-long, full-time commitment to serve on a specific project at a nonprofit organization or public agency. In return for their service, AmeriCorps VISTA members receive a modest living allowance and health benefits during their service, and have the option of receiving a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award or post-service stipend after completing their service.

AmeriCorps VISTA | Corporation for National and Community Service

Also, depending on what she is training for, the Job Corps also has some good training programs for young people.

Through a nationwide network of campuses, Job Corps offers a comprehensive array of career development services to at-risk young women and men, ages 16 to 24, to prepare them for successful careers. Job Corps employs a holistic career development training approach which integrates the teaching of academic, vocational, employability skills and social competencies through a combination of classroom, practical and based learning experiences to prepare youth for stable, long-term, high-paying jobs.

Welcome to Job Corps

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Another alternative might be to join VISTA. DW served with them for a year between her Bachelors and Masters but I think they also take motivated young people without degrees and offer a living stipend during the period of service and a $5,500 scholarship for those who complete their service.

AmeriCorps VISTA | Corporation for National and Community Service

Also, depending on what she is training for, the Job Corps also has some good training programs for young people.

Welcome to Job Corps

I didn't know about either of those options either. Thanks!

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Is it a possibility for your niece to do a similar function for you or a family you know well ? Or, maybe just getting her set up in an apartment (rent and security deposit) would pave the way for her to be able to declare herself independent. Would money gifts from you affect her financial aid ?

I'll bring up the nanny / home health aid idea. Maybe something like Daphne on Frasier. Otherwise I think the apartment set up in a lower cost of living area near an affordable college with perhaps some short term certificate programs is looking like the best long term solution. I have to look into gifts and financial aid. Good points.

 

[aja8888]

I think the apartment set up in a lower cost of living area near an affordable college with perhaps some short term certificate programs is looking like the best long term solution. I have to look into gifts and financial aid. Good points.

This is what we did for granddaughter once she was in college and out of our house. Financial aid was a blessing and we just helped with day-to-day stuff when needed, which was infrequent.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I don't have kids so I don't have a lot of practical tips, but if you do let her stay with you for some time, you may want to consider a written "contract". You indicate her family may have some blame in the living situation, but without actually living in their home, it's hard to know how she's contributed as well. Based on what you said, it sounds like she's a hard working kid, and you may want to help with a place to live. But consider being explicit in writing about your expectations - do you require her to be in school, working full/part time? What about any drugs or alcohol use, visitors to the house etc.

It doesn't need to be a formal contract, but if you have certain rules or expectations, it's good to be clear about them upfront.

And it's nice of you to want to help.

Those are all good points we need to consider. I have thought about this and I would rather continue to work part-time or use this year's slush fund to help provide support, if it comes to that, than raise another young adult, living in our home and deal with issues like car and house rules again.

 

[freebird5825]

I'll bring up the nanny / home health aid idea. Maybe something like Daphne on Frasier. Otherwise I think the apartment set up in a lower cost of living area near an affordable college with perhaps some short term certificate programs is looking like the best long term solution. I have to look into gifts and financial aid. Good points.

Allow me to clarify. I did very simple things for their household, none of which were time consuming. While the laundry ran, I did my homework. The 3 boys did not require babysitting, they were of an age that they could go next door to play with their friends until dark. I was simply "holding down the fort" until the parents came home from night college classes.

A home health care or nanny to small children will be a very large time investment for a young lady who is w*rking part time and going to school. A "mother's helper" is a more flexible arrangement as far as scheduling and time commitment goes. I found the ad in the local newspaper.

As far as gifts go, cash is king. No paper trail.

 

[Brat]

Having raised my children in an area with affluent families let me assure that they have their share of disfunction and manipulative behavior. I remember overhearing my kids talk about a family where a parent was using meth as a performance enhancer in the early 80. If the parents are dysfunctional odds are their kid has developed responses that will need modification.

 

[Walt34]

If the parents are dysfunctional odds are their kid has developed responses that will need modification.

No doubt true, the problem with growing up in a dysfunctional environment is that the kid(s) have no or little standard of comparison so they don't know what is "normal".

But it can be overcome. We are acquainted with a young lady who had a terrible childhood, including a mother who broke some of her bones. But she had some help and now at age 25 has an AA degree that she paid for herself, is working, is living in a shared apartment on her own, has had two promotions at her job within the last year, and is in the U.S. Navy reserves. I wrote about her in a thread here. I'd call her a success story. It certainly could have turned out a lot worse.

 

[Bamaman]

And let me also say that Shelia should be on birth control--preferably an implant if that would work for her.

No surprises are needed at this time in her life. Those down on their luck more often than not bring little ones into dysfunctional families before it's time.

 

[Rick_Head]

Yes, sex is what puts the "fun" in dysfunctional families.

 

[pb4uski]

Any update? What did you decide to do?

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I made the offer to help with a positive response. It seemed to be well received but I have not heard anything more. I think she is trying to work things out on her own and with her own parents first. She is farther long in her degree than I thought so she just would need help getting over the finish line. She has a practical degree so will be fine once she is done with school, even living in a high cost of living area.

It is just the rent prices that are so crazy now. Someone is trying to rent a tent in their back yard on Airbnb for $899 a month. It is near Google HQ, but still....

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/..._everything_thats_wrong_with_the_bay_area.php

I think worst case we provide supplemental financial support for a year or two. DH and I both agree that would be money well spent

Thanks again for all the advice and suggestions.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I thought I'd give an update. I had a long talk with "Sheila" with offers to help with many of the suggestions here and budget and financial help that would lead to relatively short term independence. (As before I changed the details slightly to protect her privacy.) Shelia does have a practical degree in mind but that is evidently the very long term plan. Her plan for the next several years is a more starving artist path, budget that is paycheck to paycheck at best, no emergency fund, keeping a sporty but expensive to insure, poor MPG and unreliable, often in the shop car, counting on financial help from an off again, on again boyfriend, etc.

So I tried. I think she was looking for money more than advice. As an adult that is certainly her choice. We left the door open and we're here if she changes her mind.

 

[haha]

I thought I'd give an update. I had a long talk with "Sheila" with offers to help with many of the suggestions here and budget and financial help that would lead to relatively short term independence. (As before I changed the details slightly to protect her privacy.) Shelia does have a practical degree in mind but that is evidently the very long term plan. Her plan for the next several years is a more starving artist path, budget that is paycheck to paycheck at best, no emergency fund, keeping a sporty but expensive to insure, poor MPG and unreliable, often in the shop car, counting on financial help from an off again, on again boyfriend, etc.

So I tried. I think she was looking for money more than advice. As an adult that is certainly her choice. We left the door open and we're here if she changes her mind.

Perhaps let boyfriend take care of it. Presumably this I part of their tacit agreement. Lend me money, or no soup for you!

Ha

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Perhaps let boyfriend take care of it. Presumably this I part of their tacit agreement. Lend me money, or no soup for you!

Ha

I think the reality is she is probably not living too much different than most of the population -

76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck - Jun. 24, 2013

So my budget and career advice (pretty much all the ideas in this thread plus some of my own) probably sounded pretty boring and overly conservative in comparison.

 

[Lsbcal]

... Shelia does have a practical degree in mind but that is evidently the very long term plan. Her plan for the next several years is a more starving artist path ...

It's always disconcerting to hear of long term plans without stepping stones to get there.

 

[Htown Harry]

This essay, written by a woman in her peer group, has some practical advice.

The not-rich kid’s guide to graduating from college with almost no debt - Vox

 

[LitGal]

+1 on why support is being withdrawn..... there has to be a reason...


Also, what kind of family dynamics are you stepping into with the help?

+1 Speaking as someone who worked her way through college with scholarships, virtually no loans, and no parental help (other than my living at home for the first 2 years and during the summers), I can still remember vividly the many ways in which my peers paid for their educations.

There were some who seemed to assume someone else should help them. Even though they might have gotten some help from a sympathetic relative, it didn't seem to make them study any harder.

I went through a CA community college for two years, working the whole time to save money so I could transfer after earning the GenEd "stamp." I wasn't thrilled about living at home, but it certainly reduced my costs. And I learned that I'd better find a way to work with my parents so I could continue living there.

A lot of my friends did the same, and eventually earned CSU or UC degrees.

Yet I saw other peers and---throughout my career----- many of my students who weren't interested in maintaining working relationships with their families. So they had to take out more loans and take longer to get through school. I met few who approached relatives, expecting them to fund their education.

If someone wants an education, he/she will get one, especially in CA, where the community college system is affordable and very well streamlined for students to transfer to CSU and UC. (I know fees and tuition have gone up a lot in the past decades; but they still cost less than a college education here in OH.) I feel lucky to have earned degrees at both the CSU and the UC.

I saw many of my CA students graduate and work their way through college without much parental help. It might take them 6 years but they did it!

 

[LitGal]

I have been thinking the high cost of living is really the fundamental issue and maybe transferring schools is the best long term solution. Rent prices drop significantly just an hour or so away. The roommate issue is that I looked on Craigslist and there just wasn't a lot to choose from right now that was affordable even with roommates.

Even middle class families are being driven out. The fundamental issue is The Bay Area generated 114,000 net new jobs last year — and only 8,000 units of housing, and some of that is being bought up by overseas investors and hedge funds. That does crazy stuff to rental rates and housing prices, at least until the bubble pops again.

Dear DayLate--

I taught for 11 years on the Peninsula, south of San Francisco. There are good community colleges there, in SF, and in the East Bay. Probably 75% of the grads from the school where I taught, in San Mateo, went to community college, NOT a four-year school, for those very reasons you mention. They live at home for two years, work, save $, then transfer to CSU San Francisco, Hayward or San Jose. Some would come back to visit and tell me it was taking 6 years (because they were working, and sometimes they couldn't get the classes they needed). But they were doing it.

The only students I knew from the Bay Area who immediately attended four-year colleges were the ones who came from wealthy families, or who earned huge scholarships. Regular middle-class kids generally lived at home. (Their parents were still working hard to pay the mortgages on their Bay Area bungalows! So not much $ for college.....)

Our school surveyed the students and their parents. That's what they told us.

 

[ERD50]

I think the reality is she is probably not living too much different than most of the population -

76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck - Jun. 24, 2013

So my budget and career advice (pretty much all the ideas in this thread plus some of my own) probably sounded pretty boring and overly conservative in comparison.

That article (or one like it) has been posted before. Typical journalistic foo-foo with not enough depth to be meaningful at all.

According to their definition, I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck, even though I don't get a paycheck!

Fewer than one in four Americans have enough money in their savings account to cover at least six months of expenses,

We have no idea how many have access to other liquid funds, or what can be concluded from this.

I don't doubt that many people don't have an adequate emergency fund or access to liquidity, it's just that these headlines don't cut it.

IIRC, one of these more detailed articles was picked apart here, and re-stated in the positive (X% of households do have such-and-such), and it didn't sound so bad at all. But that doesn't grab headlines.

-ERD50

 

[Bestwifeever]

I thought I'd give an update. I had a long talk with "Sheila" with offers to help with many of the suggestions here and budget and financial help that would lead to relatively short term independence. (As before I changed the details slightly to protect her privacy.) Shelia does have a practical degree in mind but that is evidently the very long term plan. Her plan for the next several years is a more starving artist path, budget that is paycheck to paycheck at best, no emergency fund, keeping a sporty but expensive to insure, poor MPG and unreliable, often in the shop car, counting on financial help from an off again, on again boyfriend, etc.

So I tried. I think she was looking for money more than advice. As an adult that is certainly her choice. We left the door open and we're here if she changes her mind.

Many thanks for the update. I think your efforts were beneficial.

You don't know how much of your discussion will hide away in Sheila's brain and be there for her to draw upon in the future. You might never know how much your concern has helped her. She is young and doing exactly what many young people do, finding themselves their own way right now, and she probably has never heard some of the points you made to her. She is ahead of where she was just because you cared.

You also helped your own family by your efforts--your kids have a role model in you about caring for other people and putting yourself out there even if it seems unsuccessful, and think how much it will mean to you if you see your kids reaching out to others. You also treated them like caring adults in drawing them into the discussion about Sheila. And they probably, like Sheila, heard some points about future planning that might not have occurred to them.

So good job!

 

[NW-Bound]

Many thanks for the update. I think your efforts were beneficial.

You don't know how much of your discussion will hide away in Sheila's brain and be there for her to draw upon in the future...

+1

There are often times my children say to each other that Dad was right. They may not believe it right away, but just have to see for themselves. At least, what I warn them about keep them from making too grave a mistake.

 

[tmm99]

You don't know how much of your discussion will hide away in Sheila's brain and be there for her to draw upon in the future.

+2

I still remember some of what people warned me about, advised me about, many, may years ago and I have based my decisions on what they said.