LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 27, 2015: The Millennium Biltmore Hotel was one of the top 10 busiest film locations last year on January 27, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

(Los Angeles Times)

'We have no placement for them': L.A. County still keeping troubled youths in hotel rooms

Rebecca Ellis

Kathryn Hurd

June 25, 2023

Facing an unprecedented shortage of foster homes, some Los Angeles County leaders are calling on the state to fast-track facilities that could care for the most troubled youths under the countys protection.

The Times reported last month that the countys Department of Children and Family Services relied on unlicensed hotel rooms to take foster youths it could not find a home for, prompting an outcry from

leaders. L.A. schools

Supt. Alberto M. Carvalho said he was appalled. County

upervisor Kathryn Barger, one of five elected officials who oversee one of the largest child welfare systems in the nation, said she felt

But the practice has continued. As of Wednesday, five foster youths were staying in hotel rooms, according to the countys child welfare department. Other counties have placed children in former detention facilities and office buildings.

out of options.

We have no placement for them, the supervisor said in an interview.

Barger said shes not comfortable with the county placing young people in hotels, and

it is dangerous for both staff and 

But she said changes in state law tied the countys hands.

Following a wave of scandals over sexual abuse and violence in group homes across California, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a landmark law in 2015 that would move the state away from group homes

young people with relatives or foster families. Many group homes shuttered in the aftermath,

downsized significantly.

The law, hailed as one of the

significant reforms of Californias child welfare system in decades, left counties with few places to put

young people

that no group home or foster family will take them.

Barger said she believed state legislators needed to move fast to green-light facilities that will.

We need to push the state to rethink the issue surrounding licensed secure sites in the state of California, said Barger, who got her start in the county

then-Supervisor Mike Antonovich

. Because when you have a total of less than 50 beds available for youth we have a problem.

She said she was referring to Star View in Torrance and Vista del Mar on the Westside

locked

serve youth

with mental illness.

As it stands

, every

facility available to L.A. County can say no to

young people

they believe require a more intensive level of care than

can provide.

To open a site that can support youths that no other facility will, the county needs approval from Sacramento, but the Legislature has been reluctant to

such sites, wary of undermining the push to curtail group homes. 

Scott Murray, a spokesperson for the California Department of Social Services, said the agency is working with counties to ensure

every foster youth has a place that will support them. He noted

the governor recently signed a bill to create new places for foster youth who need psychiatric treatment with the goal of quickly moving them to less restrictive settings.

We know that youth who must live apart from their biological parents do best when they are cared for in committed, nurturing family homes, he said. Its critical for youth to remain in the least restrictive, most family-like settings possible, supported by a robust continuum of services to address individual needs.

But in L.A. County, politicians say hotel rooms remain

for the foreseeable future.

We dont have any other option at this point,

Supervisor Janice Hahn said.

Having to choose between our foster youth staying in hotel rooms instead of the streets is a last resort, said Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

Both

said they

wanted to see the state expand licensing options to better support youths

in hotels. Mitchell said she

wanted to see more Intensive Treatment Foster Care Homes, which take young people who need a greater level of support. Hahn agreed with Barger that there needed to be more secure facilities

called for a new strategy to recruit more foster parents.

Supervisor Hilda Solis cautioned against viewing any one type of placement as an antidote.

We have seen the dangers of succumbing to a one-size-fits-all approach that simply prioritizes placement of youth while neglecting their needs, she said. We must recognize that we will not find the solution with one type of facility.

The

of hotel rooms has

detrimental to

the

with little support or programming and to staff who watch them. The Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and The Times reported last month that two social workers had been attacked

this year while looking after youth staying in the rooms. One

youth

had been placed under psychiatric holds more than 20 times.

The countys child welfare department said a small fraction of the youths under their care are

in hotels

and that all are between the ages of 18

21.

Young people placed in these rooms are typically grappling with substance abuse issues, mental health disorders and generational trauma

and

have been disconnected from their families. Even if

find a place for them, the department noted, the young person can reject it.

We acknowledge that being in a hotel is not an ideal environment for the youth to begin to heal, department officials wrote in a statement. Sadly, there is no easy or simple approach to addressing their individual needs based on the currently available housing options.

After two workers were assaulted, David Green, a county social worker who

leads SEIU Local 721, said he convened a meeting with officials

from the countys department and offices that

some role in child welfare.

Candidly, I was afraid if it continued as is, and we weren't going to do anything different, that one of our workers could be killed, and we're going to be going to a social worker

s funeral, Green said.

He said the department quickly ushered in short-term changes: a 2-

1 staff ratio, de-escalation training, on-site security guards. But he said the group left convinced that if the hotels are to no longer be an option, they would need to work with the state to create a facility that would have a no-refusal policy required to take all youths referred to them.

A lot of social workers, they can call 20 different foster families, and theyll just say no, he said. Theyre just left without any other alternative. Thats not fair for the kids. Its not fair for the social workers.

Asked what such a facility would look like, he said it would be easier to describe what it shouldnt be.

It shouldnt resemble a juvenile detention center. And it should not look like MacLaren Hall a facility for foster youth that shuttered in the early 2000s after allegations of systemic abuse.

At the start of this legislative session, Cathy Senderling-McDonald and Diana Boyer with the County Welfare Directors Assn. of California said theyd hoped the bill the association co-sponsored SB 408 would

That language was cut from the bill, and the current version is more narrowly tailored to creating regional health teams made up of a physician, a clinical social worker and a nurse that would provide care to youths with

referred to them. They said the changes meant the bill no longer directly addressed the

issue

of youth in unlicensed care.

I mean up and down the state, weve seen kids in offices and hotels, overstaying in shelters, Boyer said. Its happening daily.

Hurd

Investigative Reporting Program.