From Foster Care to Dignity at Scale: A Conversation with Rob Scheer of Comfort Cases

In this episode of The Charity Charge Show, we sit down with Rob Scheer, founder of Comfort Cases, a nonprofit that has delivered more than 300,000 backpacks filled with essentials to children entering foster care across all 50 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and soon Canada.

Growing Up in the System

Rob did not come to foster care as an advocate. He came as a child who lived it.

He entered foster care because of abuse, not neglect. Cigarette burns on his body are reminders he still carries at 59 years old. Like many children in the system, he became a number, a file, a case. When he aged out at 18, he joined the tens of thousands of young people who are pushed out with no safety net. Within 24 hours, most become homeless. Rob was one of them.

He survived addiction, multiple suicide attempts, and repeated psychiatric hospitalizations. At 24, after nearly dying from an overdose, he made a decision that changed everything. He chose forgiveness. Not to excuse what happened, but to take his life back.

That decision did not make him a hero. It made him accountable.

The Numbers We Do Not Like to Talk About

During the episode, Rob challenges some of the most commonly repeated foster care statistics and explains why many of them understate the reality.

Here is what stands out:

• More than 400,000 children are in foster care in the United States.
• Roughly 23,000 youth age out every year.
• New homelessness counts show over 80 percent of people experiencing homelessness were touched by foster care at some point.
• Former foster youth are far more likely to experience PTSD than combat veterans.
• Only about 8 percent earn a four year college degree. That number improved recently, but it is still unacceptable.

Rob makes one point very clear. If a child enters foster care, society has already failed.