SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — California, and the nation as a whole, are failing foster kids in their care by continuing to take social security money from them to pay for general services, says a new report from the University of San Diego's Child Advocacy Institute.
"If the U.S. as a whole were to be graded on its federal law in protecting the rights and federal benefits of foster youth with disabilities and those whose parents are deceased, it would receive a resounding F," reads the new report.
For years, the Child Advocacy Institute has pushed state and federal legislators to develop clear and concise laws that outlaw the taking of federal benefits.
According to its research, each year, states and local jurisdictions nationwide pocket nearly $200 million in survivor and disability benefits from foster youth with little to no accounting of where the money is spent.
A CBS 8 investigation found that since 2015, the County of San Diego took more than $3 million in foster youth benefits.
While the county of San Diego stopped taking these payments in 2022, it still has not decided what to do with the money taken from foster children before that time.
Meanwhile, the Child Advocacy Institute told CBS 8 that states and the federal government must act.
"Too many of these children, who are our children, end up homeless and terrified on their 18th birthday, too many of them end up trafficked, too few of them go to college," Ed Howard said, who is the Senior Counsel at the Institute. "A consequence of the veto, is that California still permits counties to steal from abused and neglected children and use it to their own benefit."
The institute is now working with State Assemblymember Isaac Bryan on a new bill to preserve benefits for foster youth.
Assembly Bill 2906 aims to get the money in the right hands. In hopes of it passing, the focus is now on at least protecting survivor benefits. For example if the biological parent of a foster child dies they would be guaranteed the money, their parent had been putting toward social security.
It also would ensure that the child's guardian is notified of the money they're entitled to. AB 2906 also demands accounting of any money that is obtained. The children's advocacy group also just went before Congress to talk about the injustices our foster care youth have faced due to a lack of government protection.
"We take money that is legally theirs, without telling them and routinely use it for the care, that we're already getting paid to provide," Howard added.
This is the second time Representative Bryan pushed the legislature through to address it.
The first, AB 1521, passed both houses but was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom last year - He said he supported their mission, but ultimately cited the budget deficit.
There is also a lawsuit in the works, to get children in foster care, some kind of back pay.
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