Speranza Gonzalez was a runaway – from her mother, from foster homes, from law enforcement – until she met Lakita Williams with Beyond Emancipation, an Oakland-based foster youth program giving a “hand up, not a handout.”

With the support and community she found in Beyond Emancipation, Gonzalez has bucked the challenges often faced by foster youth and is now pursuing her Master’s in social work while applying to be a foster parent herself, paying it forward for the East Bay’s foster youth.

“There was no foster home that was consistent for me,” Gonzalez said. “Lakita has been around damn near the whole time that I’ve been in this program. There are not many places and organizations that you can find a familiar face, especially within child welfare.”

Foster youth face a particularly perilous transition into adulthood. Without the traditional safety net of parents, foster youth who age out of the system have a 50% chance of experiencing homelessness, a 69% chance of being incarcerated and face PTSD at twice the rate of combat veterans.

But Gonzalez, after years of being a “problem child,” did not want to be a part of those statistics.

Gonzalez grew up in a tight-knit Berkeley neighborhood raised by her single mother, who she described as a strict disciplinarian: no fast food, no sleepovers, and no choice in how she dressed. This stern parenting style and Gonzalez’s headstrong nature reached an impasse when at 11 years old, she skated to the library on her own and wrote an excoriating letter to her mother.

“The day that I disobeyed her was the day that I kind of found my own voice,” Gonzalez said. “But after that, it became a habit where I was like…I know that it’s not that scary being out there alone, so I’m gonna keep doing it.”

After years of this pattern, law enforcement took Gonzalez away from her mother for “neglect.” She entered the foster care system and believed that “maybe, going to another home would be better.” In reality, Gonzalez was shuffled around more than a dozen foster homes, then a group home, and then juvenile detention, all by the time she was 16.

“That was a different type of cold that I had never experienced,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez was eventually placed with Beyond Emancipation where she met her mentor Lakita Williams, a housing coordinator for Beyond Emancipation. Williams, armed with a warm smile and a no-frills attitude, made an instant connection with Gonzalez. But she didn’t know it.

“I didn’t know I was so impactful to her until she told me,” Williams said. “I think young people need to build relationships with older adults who care about them, who will coach them and mentor them… and I think that’s what I’ve been for her.”

After years of running away, Gonzalez finally found somewhere – someone – that would lift her up without clipping her wings. Williams sent her applications for rental assistance, scholarships, stipends for this and that, and even free driver’s education courses. More importantly, though, she was someone to lean on.

“Lakita, especially, she healed a lot of trauma for me,” Gonzalez said, “because she showed me that I don’t have to overshare, I can do what’s comfortable for me, and she’s still gonna be present.”

Now 25, Gonzalez has bucked the statistics. She is part of less than 5% of foster youth to graduate with a four-year degree, which she earned from the University of San Francisco. Now, she’s pursuing her Master’s in social work with Samuel Merritt University – a degree she wouldn’t have pursued without Williams, she said. Williams, however, feels like all the credit should go to Gonzalez.

“She was very tenacious and ambitious, and she is an advocate for herself,” Williams said. “I wish all youth possessed that ability that she has.”

Gonzalez wants to work at an East Bay foster youth program and be a bridge for foster children to make a change like she did at Beyond Emancipation. Headstrong as she is, Gonzalez is not waiting to join an organization to help foster youth, so she’s applied to be a foster mom at a new four-bedroom house. And if she needs any advice on an unruly teenager, she knows who to call.

“Lakita and I have an amazing relationship, and one that I will hold on to forever,” Gonzalez said, “She showed me that someone can be involved without having to be overbearing.”