Apr. 17--ST. LOUIS -- Kory Alexander says he got tired 11 years ago of meeting teenagers from his St. Louis neighborhood with no parents to care for them and no place to go.
So Alexander, then a 24-year-old single guy, became a foster parent to a teenager he knew while working at St. Vincent's Children's Home in Normandy. It's a role he has since undertaken 11 times.
He didn't stop there. So far, he has adopted three teenagers from foster care who are now legal adults. And he's hoping to soon adopt two of his five current foster teens.
"They see me working, they see me home. They see how I step up to the plate and take care of them," Alexander said of the youths, ages 15, 16, 16, 16 and 17, on a rainy afternoon as three of the boys played video games and did homework inside the apartment.
"I talk to them mostly about being independent," he said of the boys, whom the Post-Dispatch cannot name because of their foster care status. "I tell them, 'If you don't go to college, you go into the Army.'"
Although the number is still relatively small, more and more single men are adopting from the nation's increasing pool of hard-to-place foster children.
Some, such as Alexander -- who was named the 2007 Missouri Foster Parent of the Year by the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption
Association -- do it as a mission. It's a way, he says, to keep neighborhood kids away from drugs, gangs and a life on the street.
Others, such as hopeful future adoptive parent Caleb Thomas, 47, of St. Louis, say they have watched too many foster kids get lost in the system.
"You never know what happens to the kids," said Thomas, a first-grade teacher. "They just kind of disappear."
About 3 percent of the more than 51,000 adoptions of foster children nationwide are now to single men, compared with 68 percent to married couples, 27 percent to single women and 2 percent to unmarried couples, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2005, that amounted to 1,483 single men adopting foster children -- a nine-fold increase from the 164 adoptions to single men nine years prior.
The rates are lower in both Missouri and Illinois. Of the 1,247 adoptions out of foster care in Missouri between March 2005 and March 2006, 1 percent were to single men. In Illinois, it was 2 percent of 1,739 adoptions.
Of 127,000 children in foster care waiting to be adopted in the United States, 2,714 are in Missouri and 3,043 are in Illinois.
Although adoptions out of foster care nationwide have leveled off, the number of children going into foster care far surpasses those being adopted. That's why many in child advocacy and adoption placement fields welcome the trend.
"If a viable, loving and safe potential parent steps forward, and the court and social worker deem it an appropriate placement, then we support that choice," said Rita Soronen, executive director of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
Barbara Holtan, project director for Adopt-USKids, said older foster care boys could benefit from a father figure.
"The child welfare system is predominantly female," she said. "So many of these young men and young boys need that father figure in their lives desperately."
TREND HAS CRITICS
But the trend has its critics among conservative and pro-family groups that argue that traditional two-parent households are best.
"If you're talking about adoption and foster care, our perspective is that many children in foster care are already scarred by abuse and neglect, so we should do everything we can to place them in the optimal home environment," said Bill Maier, vice president with the conservative Focus on the Family.
There is no law banning single men or women from adopting. But the issue gets entangled in a debate over the unknown number of gays and lesbians also adopting foster children.
No state bans either single men or single women from adopting out of foster care. But Florida prohibits anyone who is gay or lesbian from adopting foster children, though they can still be foster parents. Two states, Mississippi and Utah, also have laws banning adoptions by same-sex couples.
But for local child advocates, gender and politics should not be issues, said Melanie Scheetz, executive director of the St. Louis-based Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition.
"In Missouri, we're focused on one thing: getting kids permanent, loving homes," she said. "We are always looking for people with the skills to help our children be the best adults that they can be."
Scheetz said the need for foster and adoptive parents in St. Louis was dire. There are 500 children in the St. Louis region waiting to be adopted, she said. The average age is 10. The vast majority are African-American, and many have siblings in need of homes.
'SOMEBODY CARES'
Alexander, an ambulance supply clerk and emergency medical technician, says some female social workers were surprised by the homey touches of his apartment, where family pictures abound and the living room has an Asian theme.
"I've had caseworkers come up here and say, 'Oh, this is not what I expected to see,'" he said of his apartment, complete with a bubbling fountain, framed art on the wall -- and a dog, a cat, a tankful of guppies, several frogs and a tarantula.
Despite the crowd of teens, the apartment remains tidy.
"It's these guys who really keep it neat," Alexander said.
The teens said they treated one another as brothers. And under Alexander's rules, if one gets in trouble, they all get in trouble.
"Yeah, he's on us about school," one of the boys said. "Always telling me I got to keep those grades up."
Alexander's home is on the second floor of a row house and has a tiny kitchen, a living room, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The teens' beds take up both of the bedrooms. But there is still room for a mini-recording studio to compose rap music.
The teens say they're grateful for a stable home, run by someone who cares enough to set the rules, check homework, call them repeatedly during the day and hassle them about their future.
"There aren't a lot of males out there that would take in five teenagers," said one. "It means somebody is going to take care of you. Somebody cares enough to have you in their home."
Alexander, however, warns that foster parenting is not easy.
"You have to give up a lot of stuff," he said. "What you get back is respect, trust, love. We're still working on honesty."
Alexander worries constantly, and he has dealt with conflicts over curfew, friends and the continuous pull of gangs.
People don't always understand why Alexander chooses to adopt teens so close to adulthood. But he says other foster teens he has cared for but did not adopt ended up on the street.
"I've put too much in to have someone else come in and undo what I've done," he said.
Nearby, one of the boys checked another's homework.
Later, after dinner, another will take the haircutting shears and give Alexander a trim. It's a duty the teen gladly does for all of his brothers in the home.
Nancy.Cambria@post-dispatch.com
314-340-8238
-----
To see more of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.stltoday.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.