A man is recalling his time in the foster care system during National Foster Care Month.

Rey Santiago says he was in the foster care system since he was 8 or 9 years old - in about six homes in five years.

“I felt like they didn’t have enough patience,” he says.

Santiago says that in his experience, foster families were violent, leaving him with permanent scars.

He says he eventually found love and family in the man he now calls dad. Before he came along, Santiago says he always felt like a stranger in someone else's home.

Experts say New York City's foster care population is lower than ever before. While they say fewer people are returning to foster care than when Santiago was a teen, there's still more work to be done.