OP / ED
HEATHER ESCALANTE SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
Editor’s Note: This piece was written before a federal judge granted a Temporary Restraining Order that would halt the closing of all of the Job Corps sites. According to information provided to all Job Corps campuses, there will now be an upcoming Preliminary Injunction hearing on June 17. If the job corps is successful in its Preliminary Injunction, the June 30 termination date will no longer apply.
My name is Heather Escalante, and I’m alive today because of Job Corps.
When I aged out of the foster care system at 21, I had nothing: no family to turn to, no place to sleep and no high school diplo- ma. I was living on the streets in a highly violent and dangerous area, sleeping wherever I could find shelter and stealing food to survive. I was invisible to everyone – just another throwaway kid that the system had forgotten.
But Job Corps saw me. They didn’t just see a homeless 21-year-old trafficking survivor who had aged out of the system and was surviving on the streets. They saw potential. They gave me a bed, three meals a day and something I’d never had before – safety and stability. For the first time in my life, I could sleep without wondering if I’d be hurt, exploited or worse before morning.
Job Corps didn’t just house me – they rescued me. They helped me earn my high school diploma. They taught me corrections and law enforcement skills through their training program. They showed me that my past didn’t have to define my future. Most importantly, they taught me that I mattered – that I was more than what had been done to me.
The staff became the family I never had. When I wanted to quit – and I did, many times – they wouldn’t let me. When the trauma felt overwhelming, when I made mistakes, they didn’t give up on me like everyone else had. They picked me up, dusted me off and said “try again.”
Today, I’m a corrections instructor at the very program that saved me. I’m in college at a university, on a scholarship. I pay taxes. I’m a contributing member of this community. I get to pour my life back into young people who remind me exactly of where I came from. I get to be the person I needed when I was broken, hopeless and trapped.
Every day, I look into the eyes of students who are living my story. Kids aging out of the foster care system. Teenagers who’ve been exploited, abused, sleeping on dangerous streets and left behind. Young people who’ve been told they’re worthless their entire lives. And I get to say to them what Job Corps told me: “You matter. Your life has value. Your future is bigger than your past. You are more than what happened to you.”
But here’s what breaks my heart: Right now, there are thousands of kids just like I was - vulnerable young people surviving on dangerous streets and environments, survivors of exploitation, aging out of the system with nowhere safe to turn. And we’re about to slam the door in their faces.
Right now, my current students are packing their bags with tears in their eyes. Students who are weeks away from graduation – from earning their certifications, from changing their lives forever – are being told, “Sorry, your dreams don’t matter anymore.” I’m watching 18-year-olds panic because they literally have nowhere safe to go. Some of them came to me yesterday asking, “What do I do now? Do I have to go back to the streets?” And I know what that means for vulnerable young people who’ve aged out of the system; I know the predators who are waiting.
These aren’t statistics. These are my kids. Kids who chose hope over the streets. Kids who chose education over the violence, exploitation and desperation that surrounds homelessness. Kids who believed the promise that if they worked hard, they could build something better.
I’m watching that hope die in their eyes, and it’s breaking my heart all over again. Because I know what those streets are like. I know the danger they’re about to face. I know the people who prey on vulnerable young adults with nowhere to go, especially those who’ve aged out of the system with no support.
When politicians talk about cutting Job Corps, they’re not talking about numbers on a spreadsheet. They’re talking about kids. Kids who aged out of the system. Kids who are one decision away from homelessness, exploitation, addiction, violence or worse. Kids who just need someone to believe in them and keep them safe long enough to believe in themselves.
I’ve heard people say these young people should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” Let me tell you something – when you’re a trafficking survivor who aged out of the system and is living on dangerous streets, you don’t have boots, let alone bootstraps. You’re just trying to survive another day without being hurt or exploited again. Job Corps gives you the boots. It gives you the tools. It gives you safety. It gives you healing. It gives you hope.
Every Job Corps graduate you meet – the nurse taking care of your grandmother, the mechanic fixing your car, the welder building your community’s infrastructure, the corrections officer keeping your community safe – we’re all proof that this program works. We’re proof that investing in kids who aged out of the system, survivors, the most vulnerable among us, pays dividends for generations.
I’m living proof. I went from being trafficked and surviving on unsafe streets after aging out at 21 to teaching in a classroom. I went from being exploited to earning a scholarship. From being a system kid with no family to being a mentor to dozens of young people who need to know their lives matter and that they can heal.
But the students I’m teaching right now? They may never get that chance. We’re sending them back to those same circumstances, to those same predators, just when they started to believe in themselves and their safety.
I know what it’s like to be invisible. I know what it’s like to be seen as damaged goods. I know what it’s like to fear for your safety every single day. And I know what it’s like to have one program, one chance, one group of people say, “You’re safe here. You matte. We see your worth, and we’re not giving up on you.”
If Job Corps had been eliminated when I needed it most, I wouldn’t be standing here today. I’d probably be dead – from the lifestyle on those streets, from the trauma, from despair. Instead, I’m here. I’m whole. I’m educated. I’m healing, and I’m fighting for the next kid who needs what I needed.
But my current students won’t get to become me. They won’t get to escape. They won’t get to heal. They won’t get to come back and teach the next generation. We’re stealing their future and sending them back to danger, calling it “government efficiency.”
These young people didn’t choose to be born into poverty. They didn’t choose to be in foster care. They didn’t choose to age out of the system with nothing. They didn’t choose to be exploited. But they chose to walk through Job Corps’ doors. They chose to leave the struggle they knew behind. They chose healing over trauma. They chose hope over despair.
Are we really going to punish them for that choice by sending them back to the very danger and exploitation they escaped?
Job Corps isn’t just a workforce program – it’s a sanctuary. It’s a promise that says: “No matter where you came from, no matter what the system did or didn’t do for you, no matter what was done to you, no matter your situation, you deserve a chance. You deserve safety. You deserve healing. You deserve to dream. You deserve to build a life worth living.”
Don’t let them break that promise to my students. Don’t let them send these kids back to homelessness.
Because somewhere tonight, there’s a young person who aged out of the system hiding in an alley or an abandoned building, just like I was. They’re scared. They’re hungry. They’re vulnerable to exploitation, and they think nobody cares if they live or die. And some of my current students – the ones being forced to pack their bags right now – they’re about to join them on those same streets.
Job Corps is their lifeline. We can’t let them drown.
We can’t let them become the casualties of a decision made by people who have never aged out of the system, never were trafficked, never slept in fear on violent streets and never had to choose between safety and hope.
These kids deserve better. They deserve the same chance I got. They deserve to become the person I became, and the person I’m still becoming.
My name is Heather Escalante, Captain at the Gary Job Corps Corrections Training Academy. I aged out of the foster care system. I’m a survivor. Job Corps saved my life and helped me heal from unimaginable trauma. Now we need to save it for the next generation – before we send them back to the very danger and exploitation they’re trying to escape.
