Free Life for Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair by Susan Sheehan Page A

conversations about things like sex,” she recalls. “What a man expects from a woman, how he treats a woman after having sex, me and the other girls, each one voicing they opinions. I was the youngest, so I was getting more of a learning. I was getting wiser.” She has referred to a couple of her original housemates as “the older sisters I never had” and to several of the staff members as “family.” After those six months, Crystal began to complain about how much her housemates stole from her. Stealing is commonplace in congregate living, and Crystal flaunted her leather coats and bags and gold jewelry—gifts from Daquan, Diamond, and her other male acquaintances. She complained about the constant thefts but never gave her valuables to the child-care workers for safekeeping. With each passing year, she displayed more reluctance to do her chores, to refrain from using profanity, to obey her curfew. She bribed one child-care worker with beer when she returned late from dates. She seemed to know just how many hours she could be AWOL and how much drinking and drugs she could do without getting tossedout. It was as if she had made up her mind to stay at the group home as long as possible, because she knew of no better alternative. She was the only one to come to 104th Avenue after having a child; she had been where the others were going.
    I n 1985, six former foster-care recipients between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one who had been discharged to independent living and three recipients currently in group homes who expected to be discharged brought suit against the governor of New York, claiming lack of supervision of those discharged and lack of provision of discharge plans or transition services before discharge for the others. The primary reason for the lawsuit seemed to be that a substantial number of people in homeless shelters had been discharged from foster care. The case resulted in greater attention to preparing older children to live independently upon discharge from foster care and to arranging more orderly discharges. Agencies like St. Christopher-Ottilie had been providing many such transition services but had not been adequately funded for them until the suit was settled, in 1986.
    Crystal was fortunate. St. Christopher’s opened an independent-living apartment for two girls in 1987 and a second in 1988. In October of 1988, Crystal applied for admission to an independent-living apartment. The first tenants of the 1987apartment had recently been evicted for breaking one of the cardinal independent-living-apartment rules: no overnight guests. During Crystal’s second year at Satellite, her attendance improved. Students had to sign a contract with each teacher, agreeing to a maximum number of cuts per subject in a cycle; if they exceeded the cuts, they were not given credit for the subject even if they attained a passing grade. In the fall of 1988, Crystal took night classes at Jamaica High School in two subjects she had failed the previous year at Satellite—math and English. It seemed that she would be able to graduate in June, 1989, and that presumption was a point in her favor when she was being considered for an independent-living apartment. The staff at the group home had always been fond of Crystal—her keen sense of humor and her lack of self-pity were endearing qualities that made many adults forgive her temper tantrums, outbursts of obscenity, and selfishness—but as she grew older and became a house leader they worried about the poor example she set the younger girls, and thought she should move on. On December 27, 1988, Crystal moved into the independent-living apartment that had been opened the previous year. Her roommate was Benita, an alumna of another St. Christopher’s group home.
    The apartment, which was situated in Jamaica, a twenty-minute ride from the 104th Avenue group home, in Queens Village, occupied the second floor of a two-family