A Mother Needed Welfare. Instead, the State Used Welfare Funds to Take Her Son.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-mother-needed-welfare-instead-the-state-used-welfare-funds-to-take-her-son

Last year, on a monthly basis, Arizona denied an average of 3,709 out of 4,277 applications from poor families seeking cash assistance. Just 6% of all families in poverty here get such help, compared with a national rate of 23%.

A big part of the reason is that Arizona spends only 13% of its welfare funding on welfare itself, and none on child care or pre-K. Meanwhile, it diverts 61% of the dollars to the state’s child protective services system, which amounts to more than $150 million repurposed in this way every year, a ProPublica review of budget documents shows.

In other words, welfare in Arizona largely goes not to helping poor parents financially but rather to the state’s Department of Child Safety — an agency that investigates many of these same parents, and that sometimes takes their kids away for reasons arising from the poverty that they were seeking help with in the first place.

Arizona is an outlier in this regard. The average proportion of welfare funding spent on child protective services in other states is 8%.

This article tells the story of a mother who was working "sunup to sundown" without help to pay for housing or child care. A babysitter allegedly touched her son inappropriately, and the mother -- a former foster kid herself -- reacted so angrily the cops were called, she was arrested for disorderly conduct and spent the night in jail.

The state of Arizona then spent welfare money to pay for a CPS investigation, and her kid was placed in a foster family for six months, without any allegations of abuse or neglect against the mom.

The article is part of ProPublica's wider coverage of welfare, which has found major systemic issues with Clinton's 1996 reforms.

[The Magistrate]

1. The 'Protective Services' Are Worse Than The Police

In my life I've seen no more than a couple of instances where state intervention might produce a better situation for a kid in dire circumstances. It's often just indifference rather than malice, but that's a distinction a child is seldom capable of making, and of little meaning anyway to one who suffers from either.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Exactly -- more research is finding that the majority of cases where CPS takes children away from

their families is because of poverty, something that could be easily fixed by giving parents money instead of giving the state money to take kids away from parents.

[The Magistrate]

4. It Is Amazing How Provision Of Money Helps With Problems Stemming From Lack Of The Stuff

[Kaleva]

6. From my experience as a foster parent, I have the opposite view.

The folks at the local CPS work hard and put up with a lot of abuse.

I don't do it anymore as I'm older, disabled and spend much of time caring for my wife. It's also heartbreaking knowing many of the kids are just going to end up back with their parents, most of whom are on drugs, and are being set up for failure in life.

At least in Michigan, it's very hard for the courts to permanently remove a child from a home and many of them know they just have to go through the motions in order to get their child back. Something like a 3 year old girl found naked in a ditch during cold weather while the mother and father were in the home unaware of where their daughter was is an example of where the parents lost physical and legal custody of not just the girl but her siblings too.

[onethatcares]

3. was wondering how many of those kids

get placed in foster care and the fostering family then avails itself of state dollars in order to keep the children.

[Kaleva]

7. I got about $500 a month to care for a child full time.

There are far easier ways to make that amount of money then being a foster parent and I didn't do it for the money.

[intheflow]

9. And yet.

Many, many foster parents do it for the money. I work in public services and see many children in the foster system who are being fostered by people on disability or are illegal drug users, to help them make their rent. Some of these kids under 15 work under-the-table jobs to make money for clothing and enough food. Thanks for being a good foster parent, but there are plenty of folks out there - even well-meaning folks - who foster because they need extra income first, and want to care for kids secondly.

[Kaleva]

15. In Michigan the rules are rather strict.

They went over our finances to verify that we were financially sound. Our home was inspected by 3 separate people from 3 separate organizations, had to complete a several page questionnaire and they did a background check on us. We had to complete a training program and get references from 3 people, who were considered pillars of the community, not related to us. While we were foster parents, our home was inspected monthly. The monthly inspection was a going over of the child's bedroom, the bathrooms and main living areas. The bigger inspection was done semi-annually I believe, maybe quarterly, and it was a thorough going over of the whole house. We weren't told ahead of time of these inspections. They called the day of.

The child got WIC and a clothing allowance but that didn't cover all costs for such. The balance coming out of the money we got for caring for the child. Plus we didn't get compensated for mileage for bringing the child to Drs. appointments, family team meetings and parent time.

Then there was the abuse we got from certain members of the child's family. Nasty phone calls, legal threats and seeing them driving by our place slowly back and forth or just parked down the street.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. When giving that money directly to the parent would have better outcomes.

[onethatcares]

11. that's what I was trying to say.

thank you for fixing that.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Oh I wasn't trying to fix anything! Just adding on.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Midmorning kick.

[Solly Mack]

12. K&R