The house has just passed, by an overwhelming majority, the Foster Care Independence Act, designed to ease the transition to adulthood for those who reach age 18 in foster care. The law offers much needed help in housing, medical care and training -- but legislators, all of us, says PNS commentator Nell Bernstein, might benefit from listening to those they want to help. Bernstein is the Editor of YO! (Youth Outlook), a magazine by and about young people published by the Pacific News Service.

Americans have mixed feelings about "other people's children" -- especially those that need our help most. We often dismiss them as a product of their parents' failings, or keep our distance out of respect for "the sanctity of the family."

But this is not possible with the half million children in our foster care system. They are, by legal decree, nobody's children but ours.

These children offer a real test. If we can do right by them, then we might finally have something useful to say about what "family" means.

The Foster Care Independence Act -- which passed the House of Representatives 380 to 6 last week -- reflects a sincere effort to do right. But it also reflects a gap between what the state wants for its children and what those children want for themselves.

"Independence" is not a word used by children in the foster care system to describe their own aspirations. Having grown up without family, they are painfully aware of the need to be self-reliant. What they long for is someone they can depend on.

The $500 million, 5-year legislation, which has the support of both Clintons, doubles funding for "Independent Living Programs," which offer training in such skills as balancing a checkbook or looking for an apartment as preparation for entering adult life. It also allows the states to pay for housing after age 18 and to extend Medicaid coverage until age 21.

By all means, the Senate should sign on to this bill. Providing housing, medical care, and instruction to even a small percentage of those who need it is surely a good idea. But we should not then imagine that we have fulfilled our obligation to the 20,000 people who leave foster care each year.

I have listened to many young men and women who turned 18 in foster homes or group homes. Some tell of packing their belongings into a garbage bag and spending the night on the street. Others say they had no choice but to return to the same parents who abused or neglected them. A few were lucky enough to go directly to college or an apartment and a job.

But they didn't talk much about a need for "services" or "programs" -- they'd already had a lifetime's worth of those. They talked about wanting relationships, about feeling alone and being alone.

"Emancipating isn't that hard," says Ida, 24, who entered the system age seven. "It's the year after, when there's no help at all. We don't have anybody to lean on. The state is supposed to be your parent, but normally parents don't leave you alone at 18."

Many foster youth are also aware that "independent" can be a euphemism for "off welfare."

"The image people have of former foster youth is that we're going to become welfare dependents and rip off the state for all this money," observes Jennifer, 24, who entered the system at 15 and has held a job since she was old enough to do so.

"But it's not as clear cut as just 'Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and move on,"' she says, "when you don't have the support."

Jennifer has established a support group for former foster youth on her college campus. "I don't like the idea of having to pick yourself up by yourself. That's not the way it works. You don't make it through any stage of life alone."

The family is widely presumed to be the bedrock for society. If you have no family, how do you find your place in society? Who will ready that place for you, and you for it?

These questions dog foster youth throughout their lives. But they come to a head at 18 when they "age out" and begin life as putative adults. Finding a place in the world both literally (a place to live, a place to work) and figuratively (a sense of belonging, a place among others) becomes the central, overwhelming task.

$500 million worth of services and programs can't hurt, and the fact that the federal government is finally acknowledging some responsibility for the children it has helped raise to adulthood is cause for celebration.

But the essential, next step is to want more for these young people than a hollow "independence." We must also provide the means for them to become interdependent -- to join the networks of family, neighborhood, and community.

"It's not easy," says Angel, 22, who has lived in ten different places since leaving the system. "You have no family -- no blood family or anything like that -- and they just open the door and push you out. It's not about needing someone to secure me and be there every step of the way, but just someone to give me that motivation -- 'You can do it' -- which I never had. To this very day I need that. But it's hard to find people like that."