From "Christian Bale Built a Foster Care Village in the California Desert/The actor has been working for almost two decades to build a foster care nonprofit outside Los Angeles" (NYT gift link).
"Mr. Bale revealed that his sister was briefly in foster care when they were children but discounted that as his motivation. 'I usually don’t say that because I think that it shouldn’t require any experience of that to care about little human beings,' he said."
"Mr. Bale revealed that his sister was briefly in foster care when they were children but discounted that as his motivation. 'I usually don’t say that because I think that it shouldn’t require any experience of that to care about little human beings,' he said."
Posts
25 comments:
wow. I hope it's successful.
Many foster care state programs are a shit show. Lots of abuse of money and children.
A traditional model of family to foster care, which is good for parents and children. Keep going.
I know a guy who's family took in two Guatemalan teens after their mother was deported back to Guatemala. One of the teens, the girl, had trouble adjusting at first. But she was made aware that it was either accept her new situation or join their mother back in Guatemala. The teens had grown up here in the States most of their lives.
That last part of the story title, "outside Los Angeles," may be the most important decision for success.
There's a place near me that does something similar. It's a private, more or less religiously-based community. Kids stay there and live with volunteer families who also live on-site. I know two of the volunteers. They said the biggest problem these kids have is trusting adults.
Off topic: here's a very good visual summary of where the world's energy comes from:
https://conversableeconomist.com/2026/09/18/energy-and-carbon-emissions-some-global-ground-truths/
I can’t pretend to know how this will work. Like any sane person would be I am troubled by it’s location in a state run and populated by incompetent, corrupt Democrats. I’m also still wondering at the silence and apparent indifference of multimillionaire Brit celebs about Rotherham, etc.
I wonder if his celebrity and his deep pockets were the only way something like it could be built.
CA is run by one-party corrupt soviet economic illiterate boobs.
How this got thru is a shock.
Now he needs to add home schooling too
Couldn't Mr. Bale just wear a colored ribbon or give a lecture at the Oscars instead? Imagine the savings.
Watch any movie - USA or EU - mention to a mother, do this or your children will be in foster care. It's like an assured promise of all the worst evil exists in that part of society. The average cost of a family of 4 to raise a child - per month - about $1200 in Texas foster parents get about $900. Put three foster youth in the same home and Snap benefits are zero. in this scenario they need $600 more but the gov gives them less. The average foster youth moves 4 times some 8 or 9 is common. Only 60% graduate from HS . But the state will pay for their college. 3% finish college. At 18 they are an adult and on their own. No roof over their head often not money in their wallet.
Brad, thank you for the rundown - very valuable for us to know, I think. We try to be a compassionate society, right? Admittedly the percentage of kids in foster care is small (per Google, about 0.4% or about 1 in 250). But they are among our most vulnerable people.
Once the State starts to ruin/run things - most of these programs are abused. Then someone comes it to try to clean it up and they are blamed with "how could you" take away our candy/conveyor belt of sugar- type stuff.
Bale's operation will be squashed by the state, now that it has become visible. Can't have private competition for things that must be inside the state. (Hmm. Something familiar about that phrasing...)
Lots of abuse of money and children.
The one former foster child I met had been abused by her foster parents, including broken ribs.
Michelle Obama made a "bring back our girls" sign, once.
Brave.
Batman.
And Moses.
Mark Wahlberg, another right-winger, made a great little movie called Instant Family. Under my radar, and yet it made $122 million when it came out (2018). Funny, like a Disney movie except with a little dick pic humor.
Instant Family
Here's one of Hollywood's most successful male actors, eschewing glamor and putting not only his money, but his time and effort, into giving back where it counts the most: Our young. Bravo, Mr. & Mrs. Bale. Bravo.
Sounds like a good plan. My father worked at the George Jr which had a house parent model that worked well back in the 50’s and 60’s but had trouble dealing with drugs later. They are still in operation. Many of the House Parents were Cornell hockey players.
Part of me wants to believe this will be a great pilot and model for making foster care better. Part of me sees it as recycled collectivism. I hope for the best, but since this is in California, and LA County in particular, I'll reserve judgment.
Our Village
"Together California will offer two studio apartments providing temporary housing for birth parents working towards family reunification or transitional-age-youth pursuing pathways to independence.
An 11,000-square-foot Community Center will house the Together California offices and offer enriching programs and services to the entire community.
Garden, recreational, and sports areas will create an engaging and healthy space for children and families in the community to come together, learn, collaborate, and care for each other.
Together California creates homes in the context of a village to strengthen our experience of belonging and help children reach their full potential. The group of individual homes, with shared recreational facilities and administrative offices, is designed to create a true sense of community. The unique strength lies in the collective power of loving foster parents, dedicated staff, and the surrounding community who work together to help children gain confidence, trust, and a renewed sense of hope. We aim to provide Together California youth with the tools and resources they need to grow into caring, responsible, self-reliant adults."
Gerda--good link.
This will come as a surprise to a lot of supposedly smart people: "Electricity is not included here because it isn’t a “source” of energy, but rather a way of transmitting and storing energy produced by primary sources.)"
Self-reliance is the key. Also, comprehensive duties for both mother and father at home and work.
"Together California upends that model by having both the parents and their foster children (and up to two children those parents already have) move together into the village, where they will be joined by 11 other foster families."
So rather than having the foster kids join intact families, we'll put the kids from intact families into foster care...
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith. Also: No italics, even briefly. Use asterisks for emphasis. And don't play with the format by changing fonts or using boldface or all caps. Never include more than one extra line break between paragraphs.