Keeping it in the family: a Los Angeles campaign organizes against state policies that put kids into foster care.

GRANDMOTHERS AND OTHER RELATIVES caring for foster children in South Los Angeles, where 98 percent of residents are people of color--mostly Black and Latino--have garnered new rights and benefits after taking their demands statewide. Their reforms spotlighted the disparity in resources, which contributes to the overwhelming trend toward removing children from their relatives in poor communities of color and placing them in foster care or group homes.

Community Coalition, a local grassroots organization, began in 1999 to organize relative caregivers in South Los Angeles. Having long been excluded from federal foster care benefits, family members began to demand respect and equal support for the vital role they play as caregivers for tens of thousands of young people in South L.A.

Relatives are not eligible to receive federal foster care benefits like the packages awarded to private foster families and group homes unless they enter the formal foster care system themselves. Most relatives have determined not to enter a formal relationship with foster services because families are afraid to have government-issued restrictions in their lives.

"There is a lot of shame around the foster system," says Aurea Montes-Rodriguez, Community Coalition's former associate director. As residents in South L.A. face disproportionately high levels of poverty and incarceration, children are often left to the foster care system and separated from their families and communities.

While foster families and private group homes can be paid between $1,200 and $5,500 in federal funds for every child they care for, family members are eligible for only a fraction of that--no more than $500 through the California program for relative caregivers. Though at least 35 states have subsidized programs for relative caregivers, most, including the KinGap program in California, do not achieve parity with the private foster caregivers.

States have an incentive to place children in private foster homes, as each child brings in thousands in federal dollars. Despite numerous studies demonstrating that children placed with family members fare better in the long term, federal regulations make permanent placement with family members difficult for families and unattractive to states. Through the campaign, "families began to recognize that they were playing an important role in stopping these kids from becoming institutionalized and just another number," said Montes-Rodriguez. Organizers and residents eventually established the Kinship Support Center, which provides families with case management and a place from which relative caregivers can organize and be educated about their rights.

From there, Community Coalition's base of relative caregivers took their struggle to the state, where they demonstrated and testified at a legislative hearing. Their demands were simple: children must be able to stay with their relatives when their parents are unable to care for them, and the state must achieve parity between the funds received by private foster caregivers and relative caregivers.

Last year, with the active support of Community Coalition's former director, Rep. Karen Bass, relative caregivers in South L.A. helped produce a package of legislation aimed at achieving this parity, including benefits such as clothing allowance and scholarship funds.

While some money has now been allocated to support relative caregivers, organizers are focused on making sure the funds are implemented correctly. Many relative caregivers though remain outside the system, still not receiving support. Despite those challenges, the campaign "has changed the power dynamics," says Montes-Rogriguez. "Relative caregivers are now actors making demands for their lives, not just people being acted for."

Seth Freed Wessler is a research associate at the Applied Research Center.

Family members:                           $500 or less
Foster families and private group homes:  $1,200 and $5,500

While foster families and private group homes can be paid between $1,200
and $5,500 in federal funds for every foster child they care for, family
members are only eligible for no more than $500.

Note: Table made from pie chart.