Daisy Hohman, a Minnesota mother who had her tax refund cut after her three children were placed in foster care, spoke about the change in federal guidance.
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Daisy Hohman, a Minnesota mother who had her tax refund cut after her three children were placed in foster care, spoke about the change in federal guidance.
Meg Anderson / NPR
New guidance from the federal government will make it easier for states to stop a controversial activity, according to a 2021 NPR investigationputs impoverished families in debt when their children are placed in foster care.
When children enter foster homes, there is often a surprise for their parents: Many will receive a bill from the state or county for “child support,” to share the cost of childcare. their.
However, these parents are almost always poor and struggle to pay. According to NPR’s investigation, the extra costs can put children in foster care for a few more months and then burden already poor and struggling families with more debt, often in the short term. many years.
Now, the Children and Families Administration of the US Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidelines state and county child welfare officials will allow them, if they choose, to stop billing parents.
“This is going to be a huge help to parents,” said Daisy Hohman, a Minnesota mother who received more than $19,000 in bills after her three children spent 20 months in foster care. alone there. Hohman, who was on the NPR investigation, was later refunded by her county. “This is the money I live for myself and my children.”
In every state, parents are charged for foster care even though, according to an NPR investigation, very few can afford it causing state child rights enforcement agencies to actually lose money when employees their time to find these parents and collect.
As her daughter Daisyauna watched, Daisy Hohman sifted through the paperwork from the moment her child was placed in foster care. Hohman says having to pay for her Minnesota county is an extra stress in her life: “This is money I live on for me and my kids.”
Meg Anderson / NPR
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Meg Anderson / NPR
As her daughter Daisyauna watched, Daisy Hohman sifted through the paperwork from the moment her child was placed in foster care. Hohman says having to pay for her Minnesota county is an extra stress in her life: “This is money I live on for me and my kids.”
Meg Anderson / NPR
Parents’ wages and tax refunds may be cut
Most of the collection is done by covering the parents’ salaries and tax refunds. In 2021, according to federal government statistics, nearly $96 million was collected from these parents and returned to the US Department of the Treasury. The states keep at least an equal amount. The biggest profit for the federal government – $113 million – comes in 2020 as state governments roll out stimulus checks to help parents struggling during the pandemic.
Bree, a parent in Washington state, said the foster care bill weakened her family at a time when she was seeking help to make it stronger.
Bree – NPR agreed to her request to use only her name – and her husband lived in a state where they found their low wages were insufficient to pay rent and other expenses. They moved to Washington state, bought a travel trailer that they could tow behind their 20-year-old pickup, and, with their son, lived in a trailer park between Tacoma and Seattle.
“Obviously we’re low-income,” she said. “We’re trying to raise wages.”
She and her husband found low-paying jobs, just enough to make ends meet.
Everything got better. Then, in 2019, her husband was accused of assaulting their son. Bree and her husband disputed that. The boy, almost 4 years old, was placed in a foster home.
In the end, all charges against the husband were dismissed. It was 13 months before their son returned home.
Then Bree and her husband got the bill: They owed the state $8,000 to pay child support.
Money was withdrawn from their wages. For Bree, it’s about $1,400 a month.
It was terrifying when she saw the first note with the mutilated money: “I lost my mind because I saw my check and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, how am I going to pay my bills? ?’
In court, she told the judge the “child support” bill was too high: “We come from poverty,” she told the judge. “We’re barely getting out of it. And we’re paying off our debt so we can really have decent housing for our son. And you’re pushing us back into poverty.”
The judge reduced her monthly payment. But the $8,000 debt remains — and continues to come from their paychecks and tax refunds.
Today, things are going better. Bree completed her college degree. A second child was born in September. The family has moved out of that travel trailer and – with a government rental voucher – now live in a house.
But they still have to pay off the debt from that foster care — about $300.
“When the state child support agency takes the meager amount of money a parent has when the child is in foster care, it becomes difficult for that parent to pay gas or bus or go to work; earn or keep a home. being stable will be more difficult”. Aysha Schomburg, who runs the federal agency that published new guidelines this month, said. “That’s not what we wanted.”
Schomburg, deputy commissioner for the Children’s Bureau — which provides federal funding to state and county child welfare agencies — said in a statement to NPR that the new policy instructs that “location Their default” is to stop charging parents and, instead, “find creative ways to support families.”
New rules say agencies can stop charging parents
The new guidance is welcome news for many state and county child welfare officials.
“We’re excited, we’re relieved, we’re happy,” said Allison Krutsinger, director of government affairs and community engagement at the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families. Welcome as a public agency to see up-to-date federal guidance.
Earlier this year, her department wanted to stop charging parents. But the federal government says no – and they need to go through the complicated steps first and still look at each family case.
The new rules say they can act more broadly and stop charging fees.
That will help struggling families become stronger, says Krutsinger. “What this means for families is more potential economic hardship while they are working to get their family back,” she said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration of Children and Families has issued guidance to state and county child welfare officials that allows them to stop billing parents for expenses. pay for foster care.
Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration of Children and Families has issued guidance to state and county child welfare officials that allows them to stop billing parents for expenses. pay for foster care.
Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
Desperate families continue to receive those bills until they are paid off. In Washington state, some parents are still charged for years – even 20 years or more – after reuniting with their children. “This is a financial burden that can hang on families for years – and decades,” says Krutsinger.
That new policy in Washington state – stop charging parents – will only apply to parents who come to join the system now. It won’t apply to Bree and others who still owe money.
Jill Duerr Berrick, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, says that not every state has stopped charging fees. “With the new rules, we will see a chessboard,” she said. “We’re going to have some states that are more generous and others that aren’t. And that’s the American way: location, location, location.
In California, State Representative Isaac Bryan has Law introduction that would put an end to the practice of charging parents in that state.
Federal law of 1984 requires state and county child welfare agencies, when “appropriate,” to collect funds and return a portion to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for reimbursement to the federal government, where the expenditures are made. pay for a large percentage of foster care.
Now, House and Senate Democrats have prepared a new bill – and are looking for Republican co-sponsors – to take it a step further and end up, practically sending give parents a bill for foster care expenses.
