Foster Youth, Policy Impact, and What Happens After the Bill Passes with Roweena Naidoo

In this episode of the Straight-Up 30, host Ross Izard sits down with Roweena Naidoo, Vice President of Policy and Community Initiatives at Mile High United Way, to unpack the complex intersection of foster care, education, housing, and policy. The conversation goes beyond legislation to focus on what actually happens after a bill passes—and why implementation is often the hardest and most important part. From education access and housing stability to statewide programs like 211, this episode highlights how policy decisions directly impact some of Colorado’s most vulnerable young people and what it takes to turn good policy into real outcomes.

What we cover:
• What Mile High United Way does and how it operates within a broader national network
• The realities facing foster youth, including low graduation rates and high risk of homelessness
• Why stability in education (like staying in the same school) matters for foster youth outcomes
• The gap between passing legislation and actually implementing it effectively
• How policies like free college for former foster youth took years to fully reach students
• The importance of cross-sector collaboration to address housing, education, and workforce challenges together
• Current challenges including frozen housing vouchers, threats to 211 funding, and state budget pressures

About the guest:
Roweena Naidoo is the Vice President of Policy and Community Initiatives at Mile High United Way. She leads the organization’s policy and advocacy work, community grantmaking, and major initiatives including Bridging the Gap (supporting youth aging out of foster care), community schools, and eviction prevention efforts. She works at the intersection of policy, community impact, and systems change to improve outcomes for vulnerable populations across Colorado.

Resources:
Mile High United Way: https://unitedwaydenver.org/
211 Colorado (statewide resource line for support services): Dial 211

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Straight facts. Straight talk. Straight to the point.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to the straight up 30, where we make policy make sense in 30 minutes or less. I'm your host, Ross Izzard. And today we are here with one of my favorite people in the world and one of my favorite clients, Rowena Naidu from Milehai United Way. So Rowena, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

It's my pleasure. Thanks for letting me be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

So Rowena holds the world record for the number of professional hats worn in a given day, which I don't know exactly how many jobs you have at this point. I think it might be six, but why don't you tell us what your official title is?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Happy to. So I serve as the vice president for policy and community initiatives at Mile High United Way. And as part of that role, I get to oversee our policy and advocacy work, our community grant making, our work with Bridging the Gap, which is helping young people who are aging out of the child welfare system, our community schools initiative, which creates schools as hubs to support their communities, and the Renew Collaborative, which is helping people avoid evictions.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

And then a few more things. But also you might be hard-pressed to find anybody in the country who can tell you precisely what United Way does and how it's structured. So can you walk us through the network and how the organization functions?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Aaron Powell Sure. A couple of things first. If you've interacted with the United Way, you've only interacted with that one United Way. It's not the same across the country.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

We have one in Denver, there's one in the Springs.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

There's Yeah, we have quite a few in Colorado. But what folks may not know is that Mile High United Way is actually the very first United Way in the world. It all started here in Denver in 1887.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

I don't think I knew that.

unknown 1:59

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

That's our claim to fame. And it was started by an incredible woman named Frances Weisbar Jacobs. So if you've ever been to Colorado State Capitol and been up to the Capitol Dome where the stained glass portraits are of the 16 pioneers, she's the only woman who has her portrait there because of the work she did to start National Jewish and Mile High United Way and a few other movements. She is awesome because she led four faith leaders to see that there was a need in the community and then act to address that need. In 1887, they raised $21,700 to address that need. And that started what is now the United Way movement.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

And the movement is pretty big now, right? Is it every state has a United Way, at least one?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Pretty much, yeah. Every state has a United Way. And globally there are about 1,800 United Ways.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

It also appears on the Monopoly board as community chest. That was one of the early names of the United Way.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Really?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I didn't know that either. Look at you. See? We're educating me. I like it. So one of the cool things about United Way is that I think the overall mission of the organization across all the various iterations and chapters of it is fairly aligned. But Mile High United Way has been extraordinarily active in the policy space. And I know, you know, the Mothership United Way is involved in the federal space. You've got folks that are involved, obviously, with local government and local policy. But Mile High United Way has really been pretty heavily involved in state level policy, which is how, of course, I got hooked up with you all and how we got to work with you, which has been a lot of fun. But you're working on some really interesting stuff that I would suspect that most people don't know United Way is involved in, at least directly. So talk us through some of the really big policy items that are on your table on any given day.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Ooh, wow, it's a pretty big table some days. So we're working to ensure that our foster youth and former foster youth are being supported. And there are multiple initiatives around there, particularly around housing and education support. So our foster youth are graduating at the lowest level than any other student group in the state. So they're already leaving school at a disadvantage. And then once they turn 18, they're losing so much state support that about 25% to 40% of our young people are facing homelessness as soon as they turn 18. And so we're working to ensure that there are supports in place to make sure that that doesn't happen, but also to support them on their journey to be able to be self-sufficient.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, and that's how we got involved with United Way, because we, I mean, I've been working on education policy forever, uh, had not had a ton of exposure to foster policy, and then got connected with a few groups in the city who were working on overlapping educational initiatives. I started to hear the stories of these foster kids. And it uh, you know, policy's full of interesting stuff, right? Like there's nothing that's boring. Some of it tugs on the heartstrings, some of it doesn't. Uh, but foster kids in particular, I don't you can't unsee it. After you look at that and you look at what those kids go through, it's really difficult to unsee it. And it's also a really unique population of kids because they have, I mean, they're wards of the state, right? So they have, for a whole variety of reasons, been removed from their biological parents' homes. They may go back, they may not go back. Some of them are with families, some of them are just with foster families. Uh, and the state is responsible really largely for these kids' upbringing, education, and ultimately, by extension, I think, outcomes. And they don't do a terribly good job, which isn't necessarily a criticism of any particular agency or the state itself, it's hard work. But the foster system and the child welfare system in general are complicated and messy and could be really painful for a lot of these kids, which I think leads to some of the statistics that you were using there.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, absolutely. Um, if we're looking again at those education stats, a big factor in that is that there's so many moves that a foster child may make during their time in the system. Um, it could be as little as two, but we've heard of young people who've had at least 10 moves during that time. And every time there's a move, it means that you're uprooting them from friends, from strong uh relationships that they've had, from school districts and communities that they're used to. Um, in fact, one of the bills that we got to work on a few years ago, and it came from some of our former Foster, it's saying, every time I had to move, I had to uproot from my school. And that didn't feel good. And I had to start all over again making friends, building relationships with teachers, learning the culture. And so that particular bill um made it so that children would get the transportation to their home school. Even if they're they were moved outside of that district, the county would pay for them to go back to their home school just so that they had that grounding, even though there was another move in place.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, because these a lot of these moves are not happening at like traditional breakpoints, right? So they're not necessarily between semesters or quarters, they're not clean breaks. They just uh I think a lot of folks don't know this about the foster space, but you can be placed with a foster family for a while, and then you get placed with another foster family, and then you get placed with another foster family, and the kids have some say in it, right? There are uh organizations and structures at the state level that are designed to sort of provide them with some type of a voice, but they don't always get to make the call. And you can imagine, I mean, I remember what like elementary and middle school were like for me, right? And they weren't super easy even when I was at the same school. Uh and you think about making all of those moves, uh, plus navigating the complication of whatever is going on in those family environments. And then they reach 18 and or 16, or whenever they decide they're done and they need to go work and do whatever else. And then they're just sort of thrown out into the world to figure it out. And I think one of the really interesting things that we've been able to work on with you all has been tracing the impact downstream of what happens in these kids' educational journeys in particular, but also personal journeys, and starting to map out what that means in real life, right? Both for them as people and for society, who really has a responsibility to be taking care of this population of kids. And that's generated a whole crop of really interesting pieces of legislation that have been an awful lot of fun to work on over the last few years.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yes. Uh so give me a moment. Um I think what has been um important and important learning for us has been that implementation, right? So um the policy gets um gets through the state legislature, everybody's excited about it, we know it's going to support our young people and the foster care system, but how it gets implemented at our level or with with some of our partner organizations is really important because you can easily hit barriers that you weren't expecting. Um but a good piece of policy that we got to work on with you was uh was around education and making sure that our young people who have aged out of the foster care system were able to access four-year college or university and not be left with debt as a result of that. So being able to make sure that their tuition was paid for any additional expenses like books or additional tuition or transportation were taken care of so that they could focus on uh on their education, they could focus on getting that degree, and they could focus on moving forward. A few things that we had to work on at the very beginning was that some of those education institutes weren't uh aware of this piece of legislation. Uh, it took a while. Uh we notified our foster youth that this existed for them. Um, so they were letting the schools know I think this, I think I'm eligible for this. The schools um weren't weren't prepped and ready for it at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, and we I mean, so that bill was Cynabill 8, and it was four legislative sessions ago. Yeah. I think I don't know. It all becomes a time warp when you've been doing it for this long. But it was a while, and it was an interesting piece of legislation because, like you said, it was dealing with this really small group of kids, right? There there really aren't that many kids in the child welfare system in Colorado in general. And the the estimates vary, they're usually somewhere between three and four thousand. It depends on how you want to count them. Um, not all of those kids want to go to college, right? Uh, not all of those kids stay in Colorado. And so you're sort of whittling it down to in the end, when we were talking about that bill, several hundred kids per year was kind of where we landed with the estimate. And uh Rowena's being very diplomatic, but you know, when the idea was first proposed, it wasn't that there was going to be money changing hands for these kids to go to college or to university, it was that they were going to waive the tuition and fees. Um and it was somewhat shocking. I'm not going to name any names here, but there were plenty of large uh educational institutions in the state who didn't want to do that. They didn't like it. Uh their lobbying teams didn't like it. And it was a, you know, uh in the legislature, the lower the bill number, the earlier it's introduced, and the earlier it's introduced, the more of a priority it is. And so Senator Bill Eight was a big priority for a lot of folks, pretty heavy hitters at the legislature. And it ran into a pretty shocking amount of resistance. Now it still got done eventually. There was a lot of hemming and hawing about the specifics of when kids can apply and how the benefit would work and everything else. It it ultimately passed, which was great. Uh, I know you were at the signing ceremony with the governor, it was a huge thing. And then a lot of the institutions, to your point, just didn't do it. Uh, and sometimes it was because they didn't know about it. That's the most charitable explanation. Uh, sometimes they just didn't want to, and it was an interesting thing because there was money built into the bill for there to be full-time staff at the state level who should be working with the universities to go out and do this. Uh, for whatever reason, that didn't happen. And so now we're here we are, we're four or five years out. We're finally starting to see some uptake into the program, but it took a long time to get there, which really I think folks don't see the disconnect often between, you know, you see the news and there's a big bill, and we fight over it, and the Republicans have something to say, and the Democrats have something to say, and we throw eggs at each other, and it passes or doesn't, as the case may be. And then most people, it stops being in the news, stops being a big thing. The legislature goes home and they're like, Well, I guess we're done. Right. Cool, we did it. Fist bump, walk away. But once it's law, somebody still has to do it. And if they don't do it, then the help doesn't get out the door. And when you're dealing with the population of kids as at risk as these kids, that help not getting out the door has these exponential consequences, right? So one of the things that keeps me up at night, among many things I've encountered over the course of my political career. But one of the things that bothers me the most is how many kids miss the boat in those three to four years before this really became widely known, and what those downstream impacts are going to be. And so one of the really cool conversations that United Way has been engaging in recently has been taking a look at these really interesting policies that we passed. And there was uh the free college bill, there were housing vouchers for former foster youth who were facing homelessness, there are a whole slew of other pieces related to how they get placed into different scenarios, kinship or foster or anything else. But really sitting down and being intentional about saying it's not good enough to just pass the bill, we want to see the impact that it's really having on the kids. And at least as far as I know, there aren't a lot of organizations that are doing that kind of downrange work the way that United Way is.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yeah. And I think I think you're right. It's it when the bill is signed and everybody is excited and celebrating celebrating, we're not thinking about, well, how does this actually work in community? What's that implementation plan and what's the impact of it? I mean, we've had conversations with elected officials who are like, oh yeah, I supported that bill. Whatever happened to that? Or we we have things that um have gone through the state legislature coming up again because people didn't know that something else had already been in place. So we're excited to dig into that right now and see the the um the impact and the effect of our advocacy and our policy work in this space, um, and if it has had an impact on those most vulnerable and those that we're looking to serve. So we're looking to bring together a huge group of people, hopefully, from various sectors that are working in various spaces, education, workforce, not necessarily just in the foster care space, to find out, first of all, how can we work together to see what has actually worked? And how can we, if it's working, how can we make it stronger? If it hasn't been working, what do we need to do to change that?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah, and that's not a small lift, right? Because I mean every space in the advocacy world.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

You don't play small.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

That's I like that. It's there are so many groups in the space, and like you said, it what's really particularly interesting about foster youth is that they are impacted by everything, right? So like they care about housing and they care about transportation and they care about healthcare and they care about education, everything else you could possibly throw on the table, which is true, I guess, to some extent of everybody. But for these folks, it's an existential question, right? Like, can we get them the help that they need to be able to build the platform that they need to build successful stories and successful lives? And if you don't, because they are working at such a disadvantage coming from the situations that they found themselves in, they might not get there, which is a huge consequence and a huge sort of stake in the conversation. And what's been interesting is there are a lot of groups doing really, really good work on all these various components of it, but very little of it is looked at through a unified lens of okay, we know where the issues are upstream. How can we start addressing them together? I'm I'm actually really excited about that because it's something that it would be helpful everywhere, but specifically in this area, really understanding that and bringing together groups that are touching various parts of these folks' lives in a way that is productively focused on making this policy actually work for them. It's pretty special.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I think so. And I think what's also going to be important is that we need to talk about the lives of the young people that we're serving who've been in the foster care system. So because so many people don't understand what it is that these young people have gone through and what they face once they leave the system. We got a little taste of that a few sessions ago with one of the bills we were looking at and some misunderstanding about what um formal foster youth are going through and why they need support. So I think it's going to be um equally important for us to share those life experiences with folks.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah, because we've had, I mean, you know, I've had some, this might surprise everyone. I've had some heated conversations on occasion with people down there uh who were like, well, they should just bootstrap themselves up like everybody else. And it's like, well, it doesn't exactly work that way. And so helping them understand why it matters uh and to get past the well, how much is it gonna cost again question and instead really focus on impacts for people is a an ongoing struggle. Yeah. We'll put it that way. But we're making progress. Yep. And we're up for it. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Because somebody needs to be, right? Um, so you're organizing all of that stuff. There's obviously a ton to do both on the implementation side and legislatively. I would expect that this is gonna be an ongoing policy conversation for us for I mean, probably forever.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

For as long as it takes.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, that's right. So a long time. Um we're not gonna get bored, which is good news. But then also you're working on a whole bunch of other stuff related to housing and community support and everything else. Tell us a little bit about the other projects that you have going on.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Sure. Policy related or otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Either one.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Okay. Um keeping it within the theme of uh foster youth and our bridging the gap program. So bridging the gap at Mile High United Way supports young people who've aged out of the child welfare system with housing vouches, so getting them stably housed, and then providing wraparound supports for them, whether that's education, workforce development, many of them have their own children, so support with that as well. The housing vouches that we've been using are currently frozen, which means any new young person who ages out of the system does not get access to housing through those housing vouches.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Aaron Powell And they're frozen because the feds have frozen them largely, and we're kind of waiting for them to work their way through the system.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Aaron Powell It's actually a state issue this time around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

This time, this is not the first time it's happened.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Right. So, but they're frozen. Um and so we are working with um a funding partner, the Colorado Health Foundation, to be able to create a similar kind of voucher or rental or housing stability program to help young people who were in the foster care system before. We're providing them with three years of housing and wraparound support so that we can get them to a pa a place of stability and help them on their path to economic self-sufficiency, whether that's them um finishing up their GED, whether that's them moving on to a two or four-year college, um, whether that's getting them a job where they can support themselves and their families. We're gonna be there for them and housing is the first step.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

So is that all being privately funded then?

SPEAKER_00 20:56

It is being privately funded. We are piloting this and hope to take it to the state so that they can see how this can be done.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, it's so interesting, right? Because the work has to be done. It's important. The state, as we've talked about many times on this podcast, is facing this enormous budget deficit. And so everybody is getting squeezed to some extent, and that's resulting in freezes and cuts and changes in the budget that are pushing all of that need out into the private community. It's awesome to hear that you all have managed to get it privately funded and you're carrying on, but the hope is obviously that eventually we get back to a place where the state is funding what they ought to be funding for well, for kiddos who they were responsible for, right? Agreed. And it's a tricky thing to watch those budget pressures kind of stack up into all these other issues. And I think we can lose that sometimes. We spend a lot of time fighting over balanced budgets and tabor and everything else, and we don't have to talk about that stuff. Don't worry. I see I see your eye too.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I love I love talking about tabor.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Very rarely do people understand that you can't touch the stuff. State budget without ripples. And those ripples start landing on a whole bunch of different people, including these kids. So it's awesome that you've been able to at least pick it up for now. But the hope is maybe you don't have to forever.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah, that is the hope. A few things that we're also looking at is the Colorado Child Care Contribution Tax Credit. We're looking to reauthorize that, expand that for another 10 years. That's a very important tax credit that we have in our state. It's helpful to donors, but especially helpful to our nonprofit partners that are serving in the early child care space and those providing out-of-school time programs for children up to age 12. So a donor can give an organization a donation and they will be able to get 50% back on their state taxes. And all that money goes towards supporting our nonprofits in the early child care space and out-of-school time.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

And I mean that's been around for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

It's been around for about 30 years now.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

And there's kind of been some ups and downs every now and then the state puts restrictions on it, but it has to be periodically reauthorized. So this year, the legislature is down there having that conversation almost as we speak.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

It's going fairly well, which is good news considering partisan support.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

And especially given the budget situation, that's good news. But it's just one example of one of those programs that we've got to keep going. Yes. So talking about the budget. Yeah. You guys have some other stuff going on related to other work the United Way cares about that is also tied up with the budget. And I think that's related to 211. So maybe you could tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah. So 211 is a very important program in Colorado. So anybody, actually anybody in the country and Canada can dial 211 from wherever they are and be connected to their local help center. And 211 here in Colorado, we have a database of about 7,000 resources for families. And that could be food, rental assistance, housing assistance, child care assistance, whatever it is that a family needs, they can dial 211, be connected to a navigator who can point them in the right direction for what it is that they need. It costs about $6 million to run 211 across the state. And we're very fortunate that the state of Colorado invests $1.5 million into 211 Colorado. Because of our tight budget situation, that funding is on the line right now. So it is being discussed at the JBC if whether or not that funding will be cut.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And what would it mean if it was?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

I think it would be devastating for our community members and particularly 211 help centers that serve rural communities.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

And how many centers do you have? Six. So you're talking about closing a third of the centers that are there. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah. And some programs where we were supporting child welfare would also be shut down.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Aaron Powell And there's really no backup for this, right? So I mean if you close down two centers and somebody needs help with whatever it might be and they dial 211, I know you can route them to another center, but probably they're going to have to wait a while, I would imagine. And it's not like there's another resource that can backfill this, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

No. 211 generally is uh supported through individual donors and some corporate funding and some foundation funding. And we've seen that steadily decline year over year, uh which is why it was so helpful when the state stepped in. Um so really uh trying to replace I don't know how however much is is cut is going to be a difficult task.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah. Well maybe one day we'll be able to have a different conversation about the state budget. One can only hope.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

One can only hope.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

So, Rowena, if somebody wanted to get involved with United Way, maybe volunteering with you. Yeah. You tried to get me to do the turkey trot this year. I didn't do it. I'm really, really sorry about that. Um, but if they want to get involved with you either on a volunteer basis or maybe they would like to help support some of this work financially, where would they go to do that?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah. You can check us out on our website, unitedwaydenver.org. We have incredible volunteer opportunities. You heard about the turkey trot. We have the children's holiday party in December, which is one of my favorite events. Uh we um distract and entertain the children while their parents are selecting their gifts. It's very cool. We also have our back to school bash. We have affinity groups like Women United that have a host of events uh during the year. So there's really a lot going on in service to the community.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

That's awesome. And would they just find out about it on your website?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

On the website, yeah.

unknown 27:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

And what's the website address?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Unitedwaydenver.org.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Awesome. So if you're looking to make a difference, either through volunteering or giving money, I don't think you're gonna find a better organization than Mile High United Way. Um, it's been incredible to work with you all. I'm excited to continue working with you, even though it means I have to go talk to people at the Capitol. Uh, and I'm hopeful that over the next few years we're gonna see even more progress. So thanks for coming and thanks for everything you do.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Thank you so much. This was fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

All right, that'll do it for this episode of the straight up 30. We will see you next week for another discussion about a policy issue that matters.