After bouncing through eight group home placements in six years, Sokhom Mao went to San Francisco State University, earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and landed an internship at the Stuart Foundation downtown, where he works to improve California’s foster care system.

He’s the exception to the rule.

“I’m happy to be where I am because I came from living in a broken system, which is what the foster care system is, and had to change placements eight times,” Mao says. “Lack of stability is a problem for a lot of foster youth. “

Instability doesn’t end when foster kids age out of the system. Emancipated youth often struggle with independence and are far more likely to end up pregnant, strung out, in jail or on the streets than at a college graduation ceremony. This week, AB12, legislation to extend foster care services to age 21, is sitting in the state Senate appropriations committee. If it doesn’t pass by Friday, the bill dies.

Mao says he only made it through college because of San Francisco State’s Guardian Scholars Program, which helps transitioning foster youth with housing, tuition, life skills and mental health services. The program depends on grants and gifts, not state money, and can only accommodate a small number of kids each year. Mao says without the help he received, he would have probably given up on school.

“Having that support is like having a mom and dad,” he says. “I have somebody I can go to when I have problems personally or academically. You’re not a responsible adult at 18. Other kids, their parents provide that dorm expense. And if you don’t have that emotional support, how are you going to get through life?”

Mao, 23, lost his mother to illness when he was 11. His father was a drinker and physically abusive. Mao entered the foster care system at 12 after trying to live with relatives he says were cruel to him and his siblings. Now he’s focused on changing the system that raised him, interning at the Stuart Foundation, which works to fund the Guardian Scholars. Mao’s bosses are tickled that one of their beneficiaries is now one of their colleagues.

“I think they’re happy with their investment,” Mao says.

Still, most foster youth don’t get the kind of comprehensive services Mao did.

Seaera Magsino, 21, graduated high school and emancipated from the foster care system two years ago. Initially, she was stoked.

“You want to not have to worry about anyone on your case anymore,” she says. “But once you have that you have to worry about yourself. I was never taught how to make a doctor’s appointment. I don’t know how to drive. Bank accounts, managing money, managing food. I mean, the food they cooked for me in group homes wasn’t the best, but hey….”

Magsino never met her father and says her mother has long suffered from substance abuse and mental health problems. When she was 14, her teachers noticed that she was depressed and prone to harming herself, so they called Child Protective Services.

“When child services came around I told them the truth because I envisioned myself in a better place,” she says. “My mom, she’s 42, but she’s more like 16 years old. I can call her mom but I don’t view her as a mother. I knew when I was younger that I wasn’t going to have the good life that I have now if I stayed with my family.”

After 10 foster and group home placements, Magsino left the system and got into a transitional housing program. She says most of her support services disappeared and she was lucky to get a place to live.

“It’s not guaranteed you’ll get into housing, even if you can find it,” she says.

After three semesters at Skyline College, Magsino decided to take a break from school. At the same time she was moved from San Francisco to a house in Daly City, where she had difficulty accessing therapy and other services. She says she became depressed for most of the next year and remembers exactly how it felt.

“Not wanting to get out of bed. Thinking life would be a lot better and easier if you off’d yourself,” she says. “One thing I envy about people who aren’t in foster care is that they have this network of their family supporting them that I just don’t have. There’s a lot of isolation and independence that you have that is a really hard burden to bear. When you’re having depression and you’re unfocused and you’re not having the structure of therapy and people around you, you fall down.”

Magsino finally reached out to her former social worker and CASA (court-appointed special advocate) who helped her get back on track, even though Magsino was no longer on their caseloads. She’s glad to be getting some support again.

“Being young, you don’t really want to go to therapy. When you’re in foster care, they kind of push that on you, because they believe there’s so much wrong with you since you’re going group home to group home. I went a year without therapy, hated it. Now I’m 21, I’m back into therapy and loving it.”

She works a culinary internship Monday through Friday and cares for children at a YMCA six days a week. Her jobs are going well, but Magsino is facing another problem—her time in transitional housing is up in October. She’s been given a list of subsidized housing possibilities to look into but says most are rundown Tenderloin SRO’s.

I’m thinking of moving back in with my family,” she says. Her mother lives with her grandmother, who Magsino remembers warmly. Still, this is the same family set up the court disallowed during her teenage years.

“It’s not ideal,” she says. “My mom still has issues with drugs. They do have a place for me to stay, but I’m not optimistic about living with them.”