A California grandmother fights to retrieve $30,000 taken by San Diego County from her grandchildren’s survivor benefits. Counties take millions of dollars in federal benefits from foster children,…
In December 2019, a month after her son’s death, Patricia Baca contacted the federal government to provide for her surviving grandchildren.
According to county and federal records Baca showed to CalMatters, the money taken totaled nearly $15,000 per child. Baca said she received foster care checks of about $1,000 a month per child, meaning the county partially recouped its costs using the Social Security benefits.in California and nationwide – and it’s legal.
“They’ve been traumatized, they’ve been taken from their family and now they’ve lost a parent,” she said in an interview, adding she would say to county and state officials: “This is their money, and you’re stealing it.” By state law, counties must use the money in the child’s best interests. One allowable use is to “offset” the agencies’ costs for providing foster care.
Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Culver City Democrat, is authoring a bill that would prohibit counties from using federal benefits to defray foster care costs. It also would direct child welfare agencies to use the money for the children directly, which could include preserving it for their futures. . In 2021 the county took $5.4 million of children’s Supplemental Security Income or survivor benefits as reimbursements.CalMatters also reported that Kern County in 2021 offset $313,000 of its foster care costs by taking benefits from 56 youth. And San Diego County in the 2021-2022 fiscal year took about $137,000 from 13 youth.according to the research center Child Trends
For years California’s advocates have pushed the state and counties to help foster youth apply for the federal benefits. While the children are under state and county care, county agencies have viewed the benefits as a funding stream.
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