From home to street

Forgotten children: “Suddenly I was an adult”

Former children in care help each other in the Care Leaver Association.(Bild: Care Leaver Österreich )

13,000 children and young people in Austria do not live with their parents. At the age of 18, they are released from their homes overnight and become independent - and are usually overwhelmed. Two of them told "Krone" what it's like to suddenly find themselves on the street.

"I had no family, I was pushed from one home to the next. On my 18th birthday, the counselor came in the morning and handed me my documents, birth certificate and proof of citizenship, a bank card and my savings book with 3,000 euros I had saved up myself. Then I was told: all the best and see you again." The fate of a 25-year-old Carinthian woman is not an isolated case.