The foster care system in Texas is desperately trying to assist and find placements for foster children coming into the system. Their resources are stretched so thin already due to caseworkers overloaded with cases, lack of foster homes, and the additional children coming into care every day.

The caseworkers and the state are scrambling to find ways to provide the basic needs, a bed to sleep in, a place to take a shower or just a place for the child to stay. The caseworkers have been forced to keep children in the CPS offices overnight. Some offices have cots and play pens to provide the children coming into care a safe place to stay the night, in the hopes that a placement will be found for them the following day. The reality is that placement is not found the following day for a number of these children and will return to live in a CPS office for another night.

CPS has not relieved the strain by housing foster children in their offices. This problem has continued to spiral out of control. Foster children are now being placed in hotel rooms to meet the demand of children coming into care. These are children that are in desperate need of supervision, structure, and basic care. By using hotel rooms for their care will it make it easier for foster teens to hook up and make bad choices in their lives?

The states emergency shelters are filled to capacity, so how else can the caseworkers place the child? The state has proposed to allow emergency shelters to exceed their capacity limits for no more than 48 hours. Is this just a band-aid for a system that has a serious problem?

What has happened when we as a society allow abused children, to sleep on the couches, cots, play pens, and make-shift beds on the floor in an office building?

Related article at adoption.com:

What are the challenges facing foster care?