May 4, 2023
For years, hundreds of Washington foster youth have spent nights in hotel rooms, government offices and even social workers’ cars when the state has failed to find safe placements for them. The widely-criticized practice takes place in states across the country, leaving troubled teens effectively homeless in the child welfare system meant to protect them.
In a 2021 court filing, licensed clinical social worker and assistant professor at Seattle University Anne Farina warned that if Washington’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families continues to house children in this slapdash manner, “I believe that the children in their care are unsafe and are being harmed.”