Editor’s note: The story has been updated to correct two quotes of Department of Human Services Commissioner Candice Broce.
A top Georgia official says the state has drastically reduced the number of foster kids who are temporarily living in hotels.
Department of Human Services Commissioner Candice Broce, has pledged to end the practice of “hoteling,” which is temporarily placing foster kids in hotels. At a public hearing on Wednesday, Broce said the state had just seven kids in hotels the night before, and would have even fewer Wednesday night.
“Hoteling will remain a moving target but we are so close to zero that DFCS is electric,” Broce told a statehouse study committee on Wednesday. “We still have work to do and we know that you’ve got our back as we work together to improve Georgia’s child welfare system.”
The commissioner’s remarks were during an hours-long meeting of the Senate Foster Care and Adoption Study Committee. The committee heard testimony from state officials and experts on the issues plaguing the foster care system in Georgia. They will meet a few more times this fall and are expected to recommend legislation for the next session.
Hoteling has persisted for years in Georgia and around the country. When the pandemic hit, the practice of hoteling became more commonplace: not as many families were fostering kids as the coronavirus spread, and group homes lost staff to better paying and less stressful jobs. This all resulted in fewer placements for youth, resulting in kids staying in hotels and even office spaces.
Right now, Georgia has more than 10,000 kids in foster care, and on any given night in 2021, averaged about 50 to 60 youth being kept in a hotel.
The number of foster kids who are staying in hotels can fluctuate, depending on the time of the year. Most recently, the state saw a spike of 95 kids on one night in early July, Broce said. State officials are still trying to understand what brought about that outlier, but said they were able to steeply decrease the number in the following weeks.
Broce attributes the decrease to several factors, including legislation aimed to reduce the number of kids entering foster care and temporary hotel placements, although at the time, advocates warned the changes would do little to achieve that end.
Additionally, Broce said that a key factor has been working with providers who can find a foster placement for these kids. Often, some of the hardest placements involve kids who have a developmental disability, an intellectual disability or prior involvement with the delinquency system.
“The single issue nearest and dearest to my heart is ending hoteling in my home state, and we are laser focused on that,” Broce said.
