Once homeless, this former foster youth is advocating for change within Indiana DCS

Dejuna Rodriguez was 14 when she first became homeless. 

She didn't say much about what led to it, just that a lot of things happened in her childhood that she didn't understand. That, looking back, her mom — who could at times be abusive — didn't always have the tools to parent her and her siblings.

Now 22, Rodriguez spent years cycling in and out of the child welfare system, in home placements and at residential facilities. She felt lost, otherized — like she'd been put in a box because of her past, which she couldn't control. As if no one saw her as a whole person, just a file in a series of thousands of kids in foster care. 

It would've been easy to give up on those around her. And, for a time, she did. But she never gave up on herself.

"I just told myself that before coming to this system," she said, "I knew what I could do, as a student, as a sister, as a person."

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Now advocating for foster youth at the local and state levels, Rodriguez was named the 2020 Diamond Service Award winner by the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, which each year recognizes someone who has experienced homelessness and is giving back to the community. Due to the pandemic, Rodriguez received the honor in a virtual celebration last month. 

She's experienced incredible hardships, but she believes she's a better person for it.

"I’m a people person, and it has helped me bring people together, help people understand each other, help me understand people better, help me understand myself," Rodriguez said. "It has helped me accomplish things that I probably didn’t think I was capable of."

Walking a long road

After Rodriguez entered Indiana's foster care system and was placed at a residential facility, her mother moved back to Chicago with her younger siblings. 

Residential facilities are meant to be short-term placements, typically providing a higher level of supervision than an in-home placement. Rodriguez said the experience left her "institutionalized," told when to wake up, when to eat, when to go to bed. 

She had some behavioral issues, she acknowledged, but she knows now that they were the result of inner issues manifesting outwardly.

“There's a stereotype that you did something wrong to be in foster care, so then you start to feel like something's wrong with you, or you get moved around a lot," she said, "not understanding as a child it has nothing to do with you."

Looking back, she now has enough perspective to realize it her situation was far beyond her control.

"Knowing what I know now, my mother was in foster care, and I didn’t understand that as a child, so it affected her parenting skills tremendously," she said. "And I don’t think I would’ve understood unless I went to foster care.”

She had initially planned to stay in the system after she turned 18 (the Indiana Department of Child Services provides older youth services until age 23) but decided she would rather leave her foster home to live with a cousin. 

"It wasn't the best situation," she said.

At one point of her journey, her cousin moved away, leaving her to live in the abandoned apartment with another friend who was homeless. They didn't have furniture, but the utilities were still connected. Rodriguez said she learned to budget the money she was making by selling plasma and shopping at the dollar store.

For a while, she ended up back in a residential facility. Then a few months of house-hopping. Eventually, she ended up with a boyfriend she described as abusive. The relationship had lasted two years, she said, and she eventually realized she had learned and gained nothing from it.

“A year later," she said. "I’ve been able to do everything that I couldn’t.”

Becoming a helper

Rodriguez arrived at Foster Success, a nonprofit that provides support and resources to youth and young adults ages 14 to 26 as they transition from foster care to independent adulthood, in 2019.

Maggie Stevens, the organization's CEO and president, said Rodriguez came to Foster Success with an openness to make change, a willingness to ask for help and a trust that they'd get her to the right place. Because of that, she flourished, Stevens said, and was an obvious choice to be nominated for the Diamond Service Award.

"She is trying to get her feet on the ground," she said, "but simultaneously working to support so many of her peers who are in similar situations and trying to increase awareness about resources and programs and services that are available to them."

Rodriguez is determined to be helpful, Stevens said, whether that's in a direct way by offering aid or a place to sleep, or indirectly, by advocating for policy changes at the local and state level. 

"She has a commitment and a belief that this isn't acceptable," Stevens said, "and there is something that is driving her that helps her understand that it can be changed."

Since stepping into programming, Rodriguez has become an advocate for older foster youth at the local and state levels. She was a VOICES 2020 Youth Summit Leadership Fellow, which gave her the opportunity to lead and participate in conversations with practitioners and policymakers to find solutions to issues facing youth, like homelessness, mental health, juvenile justice, foster care and educational and economic inequities.

Taking advantage of older youth services through DCS, Rodriguez also sits on the steering committee leading discussions about racial justice, equity and inclusion within the agency.

DCS Director Terry Stigdon told IndyStar in a written statement that it's "a joy" to watch Rodriguez become a more active participant in discussions about how to best serve all youth impacted by the foster care system.

"We cannot truly transform the child welfare system if we do not bring those with experience in foster care to the table," Stigdon said. "We need young leaders like Dejuna to help guide those discussions."

Rodriguez is motivated by her love for people and her desire to make the system more equitable and improve conditions for thousands of Hoosier youth. But she's also working to break "generational curses."

"My mom doesn’t know it," Rodriguez said, "but I advocate for her, too."

Understanding homelessness in Indianapolis

There are roughly 1,600 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in Marion County, according to a snapshot census conducted by service providers last January. 

Residents ages 18-24 made up just 4% of those counted last year, and the number of children in shelters dropped by nearly a quarter. There were no children living unsheltered. 

It's difficult to get an idea of just how many youth and young adults are experiencing homelessness, because their situation often presents itself differently than what someone might expect homelessness to be, said Jason Chenoweth, CEO of Outreach, which serves young people.

Youth and young adults experiencing homelessness are more likely to be doubled up, staying at a friend's house or living in unstable housing with their parents or guardians — but that arrangement can change every day, Chenoweth noted, so it's "hard to grasp" their lack of stability. 

"Just because they're safe today doesn't mean they're not gonna get a text from their friend who says, 'Hey, my mom said you can't stay here anymore, you gotta go,'" he said. "And within hours they go from being housed to homeless."

No two youth have the same story.

"I think that the commonalities that you find are that there's a deep amount of trauma in these young people's lives that occurred for an extended time long before they ever started to deal with the stark levels of homelessness," he said. 

Still, the young people served by Outreach, Chenoweth said, unknowingly balance the hyper-vigilance and independence that comes with their experience with care and compassion.

"I never quit being amazed at that," he said. "That these young people, where they would have every right in the world to be all about themselves, so many times, they're not."

Leading with her heart

Rodriguez is making her dreams come true.

She finished high school. Got her driver's license. She's awaiting a housing voucher to help her with rental assistance for a few years. She's a student at Ivy Tech Community College, studying psychology.

"People," she said, "are a really big part of God’s plan for me."

She spent a recent Wednesday at the Statehouse as a young advocate, where she was struck by how normal everyone seemed. It's easy to get flustered when meeting policymakers and leaders, she said, and it's easy to place them on a pedestal. But she's not going to let their titles intimidate her. They're people, just like her.

And maybe that means she could work there, too. Someday. 

Rodriguez has learned not to make too many plans, though, since life has a way of throwing you off-course. She's not sure what her future holds. All she knows is that she'll be helping others. 

"I don’t know where I’ll be," she said. "I’m just gonna continue to let my heart lead me."

You can reach IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at 317-444-6156 or holly.hays@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.