Bradford County placing kids in foster care due to housing shortage
Review Photo/JAMES LOEWENSTEIN Bradford County Human Services Director Bill Blevins, left, speaks at a public hearing Wednesday on the Bradford County Children & Youth Services' plans for the next year and its proposed FY 2011-12 budget. Also pictured is Children & Youth Services Director Elly Smith.
Review Photo/JAMES LOEWENSTEIN Bradford County Human Services Director Bill Blevins, left, speaks at a public hearing Wednesday on the Bradford County Children & Youth Services' plans for the next year and its proposed FY 2011-12 budget. Also pictured is Children & Youth Services Director Elly Smith.
TOWANDA - Bradford County Children & Youth Services has had to place six children from various families in foster care over the past year, because the families were evicted from their residences during the current housing shortage and there was no housing available that their families could afford to move to, the county's human services director said.
The placements appear to represent at least the beginning of a new trend.
In the past, Bradford County Children & Youth Services has placed children into foster care because of unsanitary or unsafe living conditions, "but not usually because their families were being evicted," said Elly Smith, director of the Bradford County Children & Youth Services.
At a public hearing on Wednesday on the Bradford County Children & Youth Services's plans for the coming year and its proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year, Bradford County Human Services Director Bill Blevins said that Bradford County Children & Youth Services has been affected by the growing local natural industry, mainly in the area of housing.
"We've had to take six children and place them in foster care" because their families were evicted during the past year and "they were not able to afford any other place" to move into, he explained.
During the current housing shortage, it seems that landlords evict tenants who are behind on their rent "a little more quickly" than they did in the past, Blevins said.
In addition, Bradford County Children & Youth Services has spent $30,000 over the past year on rent subsidies for families who were at risk of being evicted from their homes, an amount that is 50 percent higher than Children & Youth Services normally spends in a year on rent subsidies, Blevins said. Ninety percent of the funding for the rent subsidies comes from the state, Blevins said.
Foster care
The county placed the six children in foster care "to try to keep them in a safe environment" until their families could find affordable housing, after which time the children will be returned to their families, Blevins said.
In at least one of the cases, the family was evicted from a residence and then replaced by gas industry workers who paid a higher rent, Smith said.
"There may have been more (cases) than that, but that is the one I know of for sure," she said.
Smith said that in about half the cases, the families voluntarily signed an agreement to have their children placed in foster care until they could find permanent housing. In the cases where the family refused to sign the agreement, the county would have obtained a court order placing the child in foster care, she said.
Smith said she believes that some of the six children have already been returned to their families.
The county does not like to "break up a family" and place a child in foster care, because "it is not good for the children," Blevins said. But foster care "is the lesser of two evils," compared to having the child be homeless, he said.
There has been a "perfect storm" of events which has resulted in housing evictions and an increased risk of evictions, including layoffs that have occurred locally since 2008 due to the weak national economy, a housing shortage created when workers moved to the area to work in the gas industry, and the fact that the size of federal HUD Section 8 rent subsidies for low-income people do not take into account the high rents that now exist in Bradford County, Blevins said.
Budget
Blevins said the Bradford County Children & Youth Services' budget, which is set by the state, has been flat funded by the state over the past couple of years.
And he said he has been told by the state that it will continue to be flat funded over the next two years, a projection he calls "optimistic" due to the state's fiscal problems, including a shortage in revenue coming into the state.
For example, during the current fiscal year, which began on July 1, the state might cut its funding to Bradford County Children & Youth Services because the $28 billion state budget that was passed a few weeks ago includes $850 million in revenue from the Federal Medical Assistance Program that has not yet been appropriated by the federal government, Blevins said. And there is a debate in Congress on whether the Federal Medical Assistance Program funds should be distributed to Pennsylvania and other states, he said.
Even if the county's Children & Youth Services budget continues to be flat funded, it will not meet the needs of the agency, which is facing increased salary and benefit costs for its employees, a 30 percent increase in electricity rates expected after rate caps expire at the end of 2010, other cost increases due to inflation, and a growing local population due to the influx of workers in the gas industry, Blevins and Smith said.
Bradford County Children & Youth Services is proposing an approximately $8 million budget for its agency for the 2011-12 fiscal year, Smith said.
The 2011-12 budget will need to be approved by the Bradford County commissioners and then submitted to the state for its approval.
James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.
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