Homeless While in State Custody
“If they were going to treat me like this, why didn’t they just leave me at home?” That question was posed to me by my twelve-year-old client after being taken from his parents and moved through several foster homes, only to find himself without any home at all. Instead, he was spending his days sitting in a chair next to the desk of his caseworker – missing school to do so – and then spending each night and each weekend in a different emergency foster home. My client needed to be in foster care. Unlike the vast majority of cases that involve neglect, his was the unusual case where there had been serious abuse. I knew he did not want to go home to his parents – he knew it was not safe for him – which made his question to me all the more chilling. As a young lawyer, I was horrified by my client’s treatment, but even more so by the response of the child welfare agency to the motion I filed to bring them into court to address his situation...