Posted on 04/29/2021 2:26:34 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
Tristen Hunter was 16 and preparing to leave foster care in Juneau, Alaska, when a social worker mentioned that the state agency responsible for protecting him had been taking his money for years.
Hunter's mother died when he was little, and his father later went to prison, court records show, leaving him in a foster home. In the years that followed, he was owed nearly $700 a month in federal survivor benefits, an amount based on Social Security contributions from his mother's paychecks. He doesn't remember Alaska's Office of Children's Services ever informing him that it was routing this money — his safety net — into state coffers.
"It's really messed up to steal money from kids who grew up in foster care," said Hunter, now 21, who says he is struggling to afford college, rent and car payments. "We get out and we don't have anybody or anything. This is exactly what survivor benefits are for."
Roughly 10% of foster youth in the U.S. are entitled to Social Security benefits, either because their parents have died or because they have a physical or mental disability that would leave them in poverty without financial help. This money — typically more than $700 per month, though survivor benefits vary — is considered their property under federal law.
The Marshall Project and NPR have found that in at least 36 states and Washington, D.C., state foster care agencies comb through their case files to find kids entitled to these benefits, then apply to Social Security to become each child's financial representative, a process permitted by federal regulations. Once approved, the agencies take the money, almost always without notifying the children, their loved ones or lawyers....
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
This seems like a crappy thing to do to foster kids.
What paid for his room and board?
By golly, I bet it was some money paid for that!
Hey, maybe it was that missing money you’re crying about.
We adopted our daughter when she was 4. Her birth mother is still alive but her birth father died years ago. Is she entitled to survivor benefits from him?
I was personally involved with a group that was investigating the CPS back in the 2000s. What we found was totally evil. The CPS would use any excuse to rip kids out of their homes merely to fill the beds in the NGO contractors. 100% of children on CPS were given a Mental Health label and put on psych meds.
Some of the case workers actually loved wrecking families. We learned this from people who worked for the CPS for a time, but couldn’t stomach committing these horrible acts.
Govt is now fundamentally corrupt. Your entire exec structure of govt is made up of criminal personalities. So stealing social security payments on the sly is something to be expected of these disgusting grasping greedy people.
It would depend if she was his daughter, yours or a ward of the state at the time of his death.
I don’t know since you adopted her. I doubt it.
I would think the money would first go to any other kids he might have who are his heirs. Your daughter is your heir.
They could have given him the $700 per month and tossed him out on the street.
And the cost of his care was probably that high, on average.
No matter what, it seems that admin costs up up over 80% of what’s received; 17% goes to where it’s needed, if that.
Government is the greediest, most corrupt and murderous force on Earth.
It’s not even debatable.
Who cares about what the law says?
We live in a post-rule-of-law world.
The whole Forster care system is designed to do crappy things to foster kids.
No, they could not have.
A minor child who is the ward of the state is entitled to basic care.
And the cost of his care was probably that high, on average.
Irrelevant.
I feel like a chump for believing so long that America was, you know, America. Now that the mask has been yanked off, by the Trump presidency, and I see how corrupt it has been, I LAUGH at all these stories and revelations. Don’t even care about that kids money.
“I feel like a chump for believing so long that America was, you know, America.”
_____________________________
You only feel that way for the first few months after you have that revelation.
Then that feeling is replaced by the intense anger you have for people who are not red-pilled yet despite all the overwhelming evidence of evil.
Many jails charge a daily fee.
If the fire department responds to your house, a fee is likely charged as well.
When a kid’s mom gets welfare, the child support paid by the father is paid to the state.
How is this different?
The state is supporting this kid. The taxpayers.
They are not entitled to recover those costs?
Maybe up until you adopted her.
Nope.
If the mother had left a life insurance policy the state would not be entitled to that either.
Why ever would you think they would?
And stealing funds from a minor is a serious crime. Embezzlement.
When a kid's mom gets welfare, the child support paid by the father is paid to the state.
Child support is ALWAYS paid to the state. No matter if welfare is involved or not.
Social Security is federal money to the recipient.
Foster Care is separate federal money managed by the state agencies for the care of children.
The state agencies stole his money.
The Feds let them do it.
Her dad (our son) died when she was 9 months old and her mother's parental rights have been permanently severed by CPS and the family courts here in Florida because of her neglect, drug and alcohol abuse and being in and out of jail regularly for various offenses.
But we have been receiving the child's SS disability check from the government because of her dad's employment before he died. We put it in the bank every month for her and set up a trust for her to draw from when she reaches her majority. Giving a kid a big pot of money all at once when they can legally have access to it is not good idea. Most of them would squander it away before you knew it.
By my conservative calculations, she'll have close to a quarter of a million dollars in the trust when she comes of age. Pretty good grub stake to start her adult life with, especially if she can't have it all at once to waste.
But we never saw any evidence of dishonesty or fraud on the part of the CPS in having access to her money. We just filed to have the monthly stipend direct deposited into a savings account every month.
Geez. I get 498.00 a month. 2 kids. 9 and 13. And the state only paid me 12 out of 21 months. Oops sorry they said. And by the way we don’t pay retro. After the daycare I paid, I now average less than 4.00 a day per kid.
No payment first 6 months and in February they cut me off since I didn’t reapply with the application stating that I still had the kids. Really? They don’t know I still have the kids? The system is so broken.
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