California counties take some foster youths’ money

When she was 15 and had been a ward of the courts for half her life, Kristina Tanner discovered the price of her stays in group properties and with foster households was popping out of her personal pocket. 

She had certified for month-to-month survivor advantages checks, a Social Security program for kids whose mother and father had died.

Instead of the tons of of {dollars} a month going to her or towards financial savings, it went to Butte County, she mentioned, to cowl checks issued to her foster care suppliers. 

Now Tanner, who works three part-time jobs whereas attending Sacramento State University, wonders why the federal government wanted to take her money. 

“You’re pretty much saying I’m paying for my time in care, and there’s other people that are getting their time in care for free,” she mentioned. “It’s not like we have our parents to fall back on.”

California county youngster welfare companies repeatedly reimburse themselves for caring for foster youth by making use of for and taking the kids’s Social Security advantages — money that advocates say ought to as a substitute be going to the kids. 

Some kids in foster care have disabilities and are from low-income households, qualifying them for a Social Security program known as Supplemental Security Income, or SSI. Others are like Tanner, eligible for survivor advantages as a result of one or each of their mother and father died. 

The state doesn’t observe how a lot money is withheld from these kids, who make up a fraction of California’s 55,000 foster children. 

In Los Angeles County, which cares for a couple of third of the state’s foster kids, the Department of Children and Family Services receives the advantages of about 600 kids in its custody in any given month. Last yr $5.4 million of kids’s SSI and survivor advantages went towards defraying foster care prices, DCFS mentioned.

Advocates say taking the money hurts younger people who find themselves most in want of economic assist, whereas it covers solely a drop within the bucket of California’s youngster welfare system, which consumes nearly $5 billion in federal, state and native funds a yr.

Offsetting prices

State and county youngster welfare officers say they’re utilizing the money as meant – to supply for foster kids as in the event that they had been their mother and father.

Federal {dollars} solely pay for foster take care of some kids whose households meet strict poverty standards, and states and counties should pay the total prices for different children of their custody.

The Social Security advantages, after they’re accessible, are considered as an offset of these prices. 

“It’s not debatable that the government is required to pay for the upkeep of a child; it’s a legal obligation the state takes on when they remove a child” from their house, mentioned Amy Harfeld, nationwide coverage director for the San Diego-based Children’s Advocacy Institute. “In this particular case they are so hungry to minimize their own financial liability that they are identifying assets belonging to the child,” she mentioned.

But when younger adults age out of foster care they’re typically at higher threat poverty and homelessness. One long-term study in California present in 2020 {that a} quarter of former foster care youth reported sleeping in shelters or being briefly unhoused since exiting foster care.

Tanner mentioned Butte County, as her guardian, took her survivor advantages of about $1,200 a month till she graduated highschool and was now not eligible for them. The money doubtless totaled tens of hundreds of {dollars} over her time in state custody.

Now at 21 she has aged out of the state’s prolonged foster care system.

“Those benefits …  would have been a game changer,” she mentioned. “I would, if I had those funds, be able to support myself … It could be sitting in [an account] that’s just growing for you. It could be retirement.”

The common California youngster receiving Social Security supplemental revenue will get lower than $800 a month. Those receiving survivor advantages get about $980 month-to-month.

Nationwide observe

A rising variety of states are contemplating ending the observe of taking this money as reimbursements. 

In 2018, Maryland handed a legislation requiring the state to put aside Social Security checks for foster youth to make use of sooner or later. New York City’s youngster welfare company said it would do the same this year. 

Similar laws was proposed in Philadelphia and in Nebraska, Minnesota and Texas. And Alaska was embroiled in a category motion lawsuit over the difficulty final yr, in line with a report by The Marshall Project and NPR. 

California has not proposed ending it, regardless of the state’s latest give attention to monetary security nets for foster youth. 

Lawmakers did cross a $1,000 tax credit score for former foster youth final month, and final yr they began a $35 million program to fund direct money funds to low-income residents — with a desire for aiding former foster youth. 

The state has made different strikes to cease intercepting funds from poor households. Starting in 2025 California plans to section out a longtime observe of “recouping” youngster assist funds from households that additionally obtain money welfare.

Even so, state and county officers mentioned taking Social Security advantages is completely authorized.

“Neither federal nor state law prohibits the offsetting of foster care benefits for youth,” mentioned Scott Murray, California Department of Social Services spokesman. “The county may use those funds for the youth’s daily care and maintenance.” 

Butte County’s Department of Employment and Social Services officers refused to reply questions on Tanner’s case. 

How a lot money is taken?

CalMatters contacted a number of different counties with excessive foster care caseloads in regards to the observe. Besides Los Angeles, three others responded.

Kern County mentioned it reimbursed itself final yr greater than $313,000 with Social Security advantages from 56 youth and that quantity has been greater in earlier years.

In its newest fiscal yr, San Diego County reimbursed itself about $137,000 in advantages from 13 foster youth, the county reported.

San Francisco’s Human Services Agency employed an organization to use for advantages on foster youths’ behalf. A 2019 memo requesting a contract extension, mentioned the company was dealing with the advantages of 67 youth and “applies the SSI to placement costs in the majority of situations or gives directly to the caregiver.”

State legislation requires counties to obtain the money on the kid’s behalf if no various exists. However, federal rules arrange a desire for a guardian, relative or shut good friend to obtain the money and use it within the youngster’s finest curiosity, if potential.

Social Security spokesperson Patricia Raymond mentioned the company screens foster care companies’ use of the advantages.

In the state price range Gov. Gavin Newsom signed final month, lawmakers included new necessities that counties assist younger adults transitioning out of foster care apply for Social Security advantages. 

And the L.A. County Board of Supervisors final yr handed a decision to make sure that county welfare officers arrange financial institution accounts for foster youth to obtain the advantages after they age out.

Some youth advocates need counties to display screen foster kids for eligibility for advantages. Without that assist by way of the arduous software course of, they are saying eligible youth will miss out on the money in maturity.

Maximizing funding

Taking the money whereas the youth are nonetheless in foster care, some advocates say, is the counties’ monetary incentive to use.

“Counties understand this as a way to get kids connected to federal benefits but also maximize federal funding streams,” mentioned Sabrina Forte, director of coverage and affect litigation on the Alliance for Children’s Rights. “We just want the counties to be talking about this with the kids.”

Tanner, the Sacramento State scholar, mentioned she discovered about her survivor advantages by probability.

Tanner’s mom died of breast most cancers when Tanner was 6, and he or she was faraway from her father’s custody when she was 7. She mentioned she remembers he was in a deep melancholy, she missed a number of faculty, and he or she and her siblings had been taken out of a grimy home.

When she was 11, she was on the way in which to see him when the go to was abruptly canceled as a result of he had died. She discovered solely lately that it was most cancers. 

By the time she was 15, Tanner had crisscrossed the state, moved from foster house to group house to juvenile detention heart. She had simply moved into one other placement in Chico when her new guardian received a test within the mail from the Social Security Administration.

“This check is different from every other check my foster parents get,” Tanner recalled. “It had a little memo, it said ‘Survivor Benefits.’”

Just a few months later, the everyday funds from Butte County to her new foster guardian resumed. 

Throughout highschool, Tanner mentioned, she contacted her social employees, Butte County officers, the state and the Social Security Administration. She discovered the federal authorities had been sending her survivors advantages to youngster welfare companies since 2011, the yr her father died.

“They said as a ward of the court they get it, because technically they’re my guardians,” she mentioned of the county officers.

‘Nobody to fall back on’

If counties have money left over after taking a reimbursement, state legislation says they need to set it apart to make use of within the youngster’s finest pursuits.

Tanner mentioned she by no means noticed any of it. 

When money was tight in her foster properties, she remembers asking the county for funds to pay to play basketball or enroll in different actions in school and was advised to use for grants from nonprofits. 

When she turned 18, she requested Butte County to ship her the survivors advantages instantly, she mentioned. But as a result of she was a part of the prolonged foster care program, she remained within the county’s care.

Now a rising senior learning biomedical sciences, Tanner mentioned she barely can afford her lease in Sacramento.  

She needs to use for medical faculty and grow to be a trauma physician, impressed by childhood journeys to the hospital when her mom underwent most cancers therapy. 

“She was strong-willed,” she mentioned of her mom, memorialized in a tattoo on her forearm. “Because of my situation and having nobody to fall back on, it’s like you’re pretty much out here on your own. So your choice is to fail or not to fail.”

This article is a part of the California Divide mission, a collaboration amongst newsrooms inspecting revenue inequality and financial survival in California.