They took her kids because she was poor. Then, they sent her the bill.

Equal Justice Under Law represents Annalinda Martinez, a 40-year-old Cobb County woman with eight children who says she lives in fear of being jailed or separated from her two youngest children because she can’t pay the almost $500 a month the state charges her. She said the state wants that money because it took her six eldest children away from her in 2018 after she left an abusive boyfriend and couldn’t afford rent despite working three jobs.

Phil Telfeyan, the nonprofit’s executive director, said Georgia should not be kicking poor parents while they are down by trying to collect from them the money they need to get their children back. He said Georgia knows it likely won’t receive that money, which it doesn’t need, but seems more aggressive than other states in trying to get it.

“Georgia will seize your children because you are too poor to afford housing, but the state will then add insult to injury by billing you into deeper poverty,” he said. “These irrational and counterproductive charges are uncollectible — they only serve to delay reunification of children with their parents.”

A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Human Services said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.

Telfeyan said the department amended its policy in August 2024 to more closely reflect federal guidelines discouraging enforcement of debt when that could hinder or delay parents in reuniting with their children. He said the department’s change was a step in the right direction but wasn’t applied retroactively to Martinez and an estimated 1,000 other indigent Georgia parents still on the hook for bills they’ll likely never be able to pay.

“Some of those bills are going to be enforced for particular parents, but others are not,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The lawsuit seeks compensation and relief from debt for Martinez and all parents in her situation, alleging the state is violating their constitutional due process and equal protection rights.

In an August 2024 press release, the department said it helps parents struggling to provide support for their children by eliminating payment barriers and referring them to employment services, among other things.

Telfeyan said the department, through its Division of Family and Children Services and Division of Child Support Services, shouldn’t be charging indigent parents in the first place. He said the lawsuit aims in part to force further policy changes.

Citing a report by ProPublica and WABE, the lawsuit alleges that between 2018 and 2022, the state took children from parents solely due to inadequate housing in more than 700 instances, then charged those impoverished parents foster care fees.

Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: Daniel Varnado/For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Martinez said she sought help in early 2018 from DFCS, which put her six eldest children in foster care without first trying to keep the family together in a shelter or subsidized housing. She said the state initially charged her $100 a month in foster care fees, then increased the amount in 2019 to $472 a month despite knowing she was homeless and already in arrears.

She said her debt grew to more than $13,000 before the Georgia nonprofit Together with Families helped her pay it down. Martinez said the state won’t reduce or end her monthly bills, though only one of her children is still in foster care and she has no income while caring for her two youngest children, ages 2 and 5.