Travis County judges order state to stop housing foster children in state offices

County overwhelmed by growing number of displaced children

Travis County judges are ordering a stop to what has become an increasingly common practice in Texas: foster children sleeping in state offices when there is nowhere else for them to go.

No Travis County foster children may be placed overnight in state offices, according to a standing order signed by 10 district judges and served Friday to the Department of Family and Protective Services. The agency has been overwhelmed by a rapidly growing number of foster children, and at a time when the number of foster homes available has not kept pace.

The judges wrote that "such placement is not in the best interest of children (and) is not appropriate for meeting the child's needs." The mandate takes effect July 1, according to a letter the judges sent this week to state lawmakers informing them of the order.

Since January, when the state began keeping track, 474 children, including six from Travis County, have stayed at a state office, department officials said. That came at a cost of more than $300,000 — about $345 per child per night — which mostly went to pay overtime to state workers watching the children around the clock, officials said.

It's a trend that District Judges Darlene Byrne and Jeanne Meurer called "disturbing" in their letter. Rather than address the office stays on a case-by-case basis, the judges decided to issue the order, Byrne and Meurer wrote.

The order says that the only reason children should be placed in an office is "in an emergency situation involving the initial removal of a child/children from their home" and that even then, they should stay in an office for no longer than eight hours as state workers locate "appropriate and safe placement." In some cases, children have stayed in offices for more than one night.

Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, said the agency intends to comply with the order but he did not say how. "We just received the order and we are reviewing it very carefully," Crimmins said. "We would do everything we could possibly do — and have been doing for some time — to come up with an alternative temporary placement to keep a child from sleeping in an office."

The department in March enacted a policy requiring that children stay in hotels rather than offices whenever possible. However, hotels have rarely been used, officials said, and they have abandoned the policy because of concerns about security, availability and cost.

About 20,000 children are in foster care in Texas, an increase of about 45 percent since 2001.

Crimmins said the agency has had to freeze placements in some shelters because they are not in compliance with state standards. He also said that many of the children sleeping in offices have behavioral or emotional problems that makes it difficult to find a shelter, residential treatment center or foster home placement agency willing to take them. Many of them are preteens or teenagers; some are runaways or have mental illness or mental retardation, he said.

"It's not simply a matter that there's no room at the inn," Crimmins said.

The Austin Children's Shelter is one of many facilities statewide that house foster children. But even if there's an empty bed, the shelter often has to turn down a foster child, said Julia Burch, director of marketing and public relations. For example, if a child is a sexual perpetrator, the shelter cannot put him or her in a room with other children, Burch said.

Another barrier is communication, she said.

"We don't always get the information we need from CPS, and CPS doesn't always have the information that we need," Burch said, referring to Child Protective Services.

The shelter recently obtained court permission to house six more than its then-capacity of 30. That was in direct response to the problem of children sleeping in offices, Burch said.

State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, chairman of the House Human Services Committee, said he plans to work with state officials on a fix for Travis County that could later be expanded statewide.

"I applaud Travis County for taking a leadership role in what is a real problem," he said. "This will force the agency to find a solution."

Scott McCown, a former state district judge, said shelters and placement agencies should stretch themselves to do all they can for the children. Meanwhile, the state should consider temporarily relaxing its foster home standards, which he said are enforced in an overly technical — rather than common-sense — way. And the Legislature, which he said "stuck its head in the sand" on the problem of children sleeping in offices, needs to put money into increasing foster care capacity.

"The good thing about (the order) is it creates pressure on the department, but it doesn't create homes," McCown said.

cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548

Sleep numbers

Number of foster children sleeping in state offices

January ... 32

February ... 42

March ... 57

April ... 93

May ... 160

June to date ... 90

Total ... 474

Source: Department of Family and Protective Services