SAN DIEGO — In just an eight-year time span, from 2015 through 2023, San Diego County took $3.2 million dollars in social security and disability benefits from foster children and deposited it into county bank accounts.
CBS 8 was the first to break the story of the millions taken from foster youth.
Tuesday, June 13, San Diego Supervisors went on record against that practice by sponsoring Assembly Bill 1512.
If passed, the bill requires California counties to notify foster youth or their guardians prior to enrolling them for benefits and ensures that any funds collected are used to either pay for unmet needs or conserved for a later date.
San Diego Supervisor Jim Desmond joined activist and former foster youth, Shane Harris, to push the county to register its formal support of the state bill.
They did so, according to the agenda, as a way to not only give what is rightfully theirs but also will help provide foster youth with some financial stability after leaving the foster system.
"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," wrote Harris in an editorial for the Times of San Diego.
According to a county staff report, State Bill 1512 will not only give foster youth what is theirs but more importantly could keep them from a life of poverty.
Supervisor Desmond and Harris say approximately 25 percent of all foster youth are forced to live on the street after exiting the system, with an additional 15-to-25 percent becoming homeless less than two years afterward.
That was the case for Katrina, who spoke with CBS 8 in May of this year about her journey after leaving her foster home.
"It was just hard because I couldn't really survive. I was cold. It was raining. I really couldn't survive. Some days I didn't have enough money to get a bite to eat," Katrina told CBS 8. "I didn't even know that I qualified for [those benefits]. It's disappointing because I really needed that support. Even before I experienced homelessness, I knew that I was going to be homeless."
And while San Diego County now offers support for the bill, attorneys for the county will have to defend its former practice.
As reported by CBS 8, the county faces a lawsuit from two sisters who were placed into a foster home after the death of their parents and who had an estimated $50,000 in social security survivor benefits taken from them. The two girls, who since were adopted, are represented by the University of San Diego's Children's Advocacy Institute.
Amy Harfeld is an attorney for the institute. Harfeld spends her days petitioning state leaders throughout the nation to impose similar bans as she and the institute did for the bill now in the California State Legislature.
Harfeld tells CBS 8 that all told, she estimates that states across the U.S. have taken more than $250 million in foster benefits and used it as their own.
"When hardworking Americans contribute every paycheck to their Social Security fund, it's not a donation to the child welfare system, it's supposed to be there for them when they retire. If they don't make it to retirement, it's supposed to be there for their dependents or for their children. So for the state to intercept that money in secret behind the backs of foster youth, while they're in a particularly vulnerable position, is immoral and quite frankly predatory," Harfeld told CBS 8 in May.
On June 1, California State Assemblymembers passed the bill in the Assembly. The bill is now making its way through the state senate.
