Washington slashes grants funding foster care programs amid budget deficit

SEATTLE – Millions of dollars in grant money cut. Total operating budget gutted by a third. Hefty staff layoffs.

For Treehouse, a nonprofit serving foster kids, impressive outcomes and growing programming were not enough to save it from these challenges. It is one of dozens of educational organizations partnering with the state that has landed on the funding chopping block as the state Legislature grapples with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit over the next four years.

Treehouse CEO Dawn Rains said the massive cuts took the organization by surprise.

“We had to make some pretty quick decisions about how we were going to manage moving forward,” she said.

Two of Treehouse’s state-funded grants saw significant reductions.

One, from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, provides $7 million a year for the organization’s graduation success program. The grant allowed high schoolers in foster care to meet with Treehouse specialists who monitor their attendance and course progress, helping them make it to graduation. Graduation rates for students in foster care rose measurably as the program got underway and was expanded.

That entire grant was cut in the current budget cycle.

The other, from the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, helps fund educational advocates who work with caseworkers and caregivers to improve foster children’s progress in school. That grant fell from around $1.1 million to $660,00 a year.

The cuts took effect July 1, but Treehouse isn’t completely without help.

OSPI will provide $1.4 million – pulled from discretionary funds – to support the graduation success program until the next supplemental legislative session, Rains said.

Still, the cuts have forced the organization to pare down operations. While the graduation success program used to serve about 140 school districts, it will now only extend to 23, Rains said. Those 23 districts are among the most populous, meaning more than half of students Treehouse has been serving can still take part, Rains said. Around a quarter of the organization’s staff is being laid off, she said.

The Legislature had to find a way to trim the budget without cutting “core” K-12 funding – which the state constitution protects, said state Sen. June Robinson, Everett. So they turned to OSPI’s grant programs. Cutting funding to Treehouse wasn’t intentional, she said, nor did it have anything to do with the organization’s outcomes.

Treehouse’s funding was one of many line items in the education budget that were cut, she added.

“I didn’t realize that we had cut them until the budget was finished,” Robinson said.

‘A human program’

Victoria Delk still remembers the shock of graduating high school in 2019.

As a high school athlete, she knew she had to keep her grades up, and graduation was always part of her plan.

But for the now-24-year-old, who entered foster care as a child, graduating high school had just a little more significance.

“It was kind of a moment of – without the things in place that helped me get to where I was, I wouldn’t have been there,” she said.

As a teen, Delk regularly met with a Treehouse education specialist who checked in on her about school, sports and more. Treehouse also helped pay for her out-of-state sports trips and college tuition, she said.

Today, the Auburn resident works for a lighting company. Her twin sister, Stephanie SanJose-Lee, also took part in Treehouse programming as a high school student and graduated in 2019.

SanJose-Lee, like Delk, said Treehouse helped fund her involvement in high school sports. Graduating high school was an “indescribable feeling,” she said.

“It felt really good, because we were the first in our biological family to graduate,” she said.

Treehouse also funded a horse camp and Hawaii summer camp for both sisters.

Statewide, four-year graduation rates for foster children rose from 36.5% in 2013 to 51.2% in 2024, according to OSPI data.

While it’s hard to say definitively how much of that dramatic hike was the direct result of Treehouse’s work, the period of increase coincides neatly with the graduation success program’s rollout and expansion.

Among vocal supporters of Treehouse’s efforts is former state Sen. Reuven Carlyle. He started working with the organization around 2007, before he was elected. After he took office in 2009, Carlyle pushed for the nonprofit to receive more funding.

“It isn’t just tutoring and mentoring, it isn’t a government program,” Carlyle said. “It’s a human program that touches these kids’ souls.”

A few years back, Treehouse received nearly $5 million from the state Legislature to expand the graduation success program statewide, according to its 2020-21 school year report. It later received $2.21 million to expand the program to middle schools, according to a 2023 impact report.

Beyond education, Treehouse also provides foster youth with clothes, funding to learn to drive and support after high school.

Chief Financial Officer Toya Griffin said last month that funding cuts have forced the organization to withdraw services they only just expanded.

“That impacts our relationship with the tribes, it impacts our relationship with school districts,” Griffin said. “Because it’s all about partnership and trust.”

‘Super unexpected’

Back in April, Treehouse had little inkling of the financial troubles to come.

Hoping to cover rising costs, the nonprofit asked for an increase in funding, Griffin said.

Then, in May, they discovered the total grant amount was removed from the budget.

“It was super unexpected, she said.

Unlike OSPI, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, which funds the second grant that was significantly cut, doesn’t have the kind of discretionary dollars to give Treehouse supplemental funding for the year, department Secretary Tana Senn said.

She noted the grant reduction was part of a “universal cut,” and that Treehouse has “incredible outcomes.”

“Fifty-one percent of our foster youth graduate from high school, and if they’ve been involved with Treehouse for two or more years, they have a 70% graduation rate,” she said. “That’s incredible for any high school youth, let alone a foster youth.”

Department funding cuts also heavily affected the state’s preschool program – the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program – and organizations like Mentor Washington, Senn said.

Over at OSPI, Treehouse’s grant was among 39 projects the state cut, affecting partner educational organizations across the state, according to the agency.

Now more than ever, the nonprofit looks to raise money from the community to cover funding gaps. Treehouse also benefits from reader donations to the Seattle Times Fund for Those in Need, an annual holiday season fundraiser supporting several nonprofits in the Puget Sound region.

Today, Treehouse continues to feature in SanJose-Lee’s life. Just last month, she went to the nonprofit to get new clothes.

She also recently gave birth, and said Treehouse helped her get diapers and wipes as well as a gym membership.

“Treehouse will really find a way to make sure you’re a part of your community,” she said.

The organization’s statewide intervention for students in foster care is unique in the U.S., Rains said. If it can continue producing stellar outcomes, Treehouse has a lot to teach the country.

“It was really disheartening to see our state’s investment decrease,” she said. “Because I think this is a place where we can really be a national leader.”