The State of Florida has a long history of failing its foster children. They have often been found to not providing suitable housing and having foster kids sleeping in empty offices until a foster home can be located. They have also repeatedly failed to provide needed services to children under their care.
Sadly, things do not appear to have improved at all under Governor Ron DeSantis:
8 On Your Side’s Brittany Muller found a local facility where foster children are sent during the day. Operators said facilities like this one keep foster kids off the streets, but critics said it’s just a way to warehouse children with no place else to go.
A boarded-up cement block building sits on Corrine street in Tampa’s Palmetto Beach neighborhood. Signs outside say it used to be a Pentecostal Church. These days, neighbors see kids coming and going, but say they’re not sure what’s happening inside.
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We checked with the Tampa Police Department and found more than 130 police calls to the building on Corrine Street since June—calls reporting physical battery, criminal mischief, disturbances, runaway calls and even an attempted suicide.
Attorney Ad Litem, Maria Pavlidis, who volunteers to represent foster children in court, is concerned that facilities like the one on Corrine Street could do more harm than good.
“You are removing children from a home that you think is inappropriate or has violence neglect, and then you’re putting them in a place that’s almost worse than where they were before,” said Pavlidis.
The report states that Florida does not require these types of facilities to be licensed so there is little to no monitoring to see what level of care, if any, the foster children are receiving.
And considering that many of these children were removed from their parental homes due to neglect, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida are simply revictimizing these children.
Ironically, a parent who provided that lack of care could be criminally charged. DeSantis is running for president and eating pudding by the handful.
