On Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will vote on a proposal I made in May. I am sure that you probably had no clue that the county took over $3 million of foster children’s survivor and disability benefits for years until they stopped the practice last year.
I am also sure that you probably didn’t know that counties across the state and country have been pocketing foster children’s survivor and disability benefits for decades. I am a former foster youth myself who spent 13 years in the county’s foster care system after losing both of my parents and I had no clue that this practice was taking place either.
Foster children are already bearing the brunt of poverty in this country, and more and more statistics demonstrate that glaring reality that we too often ignore. The fact that the government raises children that were taken from their biological families and ultimately end up neglected and in poverty is reprehensible.
One in every four foster youth go homeless upon exiting the system. Only 10% of foster youth go to college and only 2% graduate. The reality is that the way that counties and ultimately the state and federal government have managed the foster-case system has caused longstanding harm and trauma.
Survivor benefits often go to children who are left behind when someone dies, and disability benefits often go to someone who is disabled and requires government assistance because they cannot work.
However, this has not been the case for foster kids who either have been left behind by parents who have died as well as foster children who are disabled. The counties have been pocketing upwards of millions of dollars that were supposed to go to these same kids for decades, using the funds to offset costs of overseeing the child — at least that’s what they say.
Most foster children who are entitled to some of these funds don’t even know what has been happening and have not had a say in where the funds should go as well as knowing how to access these funds once they are of age.
Assembly Bill 1512 would prohibit California counties from taking these funds any longer and put an end to the act statewide for all counties. The bill, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan of Culver City, directs counties to inform children of their right to these benefits and to assist them in getting their benefits transferred once they become of age.
This bill also directs counties to find other routes to saving these funds for the youth and prohibits putting that money back into county administrative costs.
My organization, the People’s Association of Justice Advocates, and I support the bill and believe that survivor and disability benefits for those who qualify could be another tool for combating poverty and homelessness rates among foster youth.
During May, which was national Foster Care Month, I asked Supervisor Jim Desmond to bring forth a request for the county become a sponsor of AB 1512. I am grateful that he answered the call, working with me to draft board letter that will be brought forth Tuesday for a vote by the Board of Supervisors.
If supervisors vote in favor of our action, they will be demonstrating solidarity with the over 2,500 children they are the parents to in the foster-care system that they oversee. If not, they would be demonstrating that they will go to lengths to line the coffers of local government even if it means opposing an effort to put that money back in the pockets of foster youth deserving of these benefits.
The right thing would be to support this action, make the county a sponsor of the bill, and work to right the generations-long wrongs carried out against children who at no fault of their own ended up in this situation in the first place.
Shane Harris is an ordained minister and founder of a national bicoastal civil rights nonprofit organization and policy institute called the People’s Association of Justice Advocates.