Lino was placed in foster care at 5 years old, where he remained until he was 18. Prior to his time in care, he, his mother and his sister had seen hard times, struggling with things like housing and food security and the traumas they had been dealt at the hands of others. The traumas Lino faced didn’t end there as his life continued to exist in the realm of chaos. Lino remained surrounded by things like abuse, neglect, and violence. When he first entered care he lived in an orphanage in the Central Valley of California. Right after that he was fortunate enough to find a foster family stable enough to see him through high school. Lino went off to college, and various family dynamics and hardships made that family fall apart. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and moved to Boston where he did door-to-door before becoming a caseworker and dedicating himself to the realm of social work. Lino participated in national advocacy internship programs and got an internship with the United States, House of Representatives. It eventually led him to move to DC to pursue advocacy full time. Since then, Lino has been on the founding team of 2 non-profits, SUN Scholars and FosterStrong.