Los Angeles Wave Publication

By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor

March 1, 2006

While the committee, chaired by Assemblywoman Karen Bass, is studying all aspects of a system responsible for the care of nearly 100,000 children, the hearing took testimony from relatives — grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles — who are raising minor children who are not their own.

Across the United States, more than 6 million children are being raised in households headed by grandparents and other relatives. According to the data released by the Edgewood Center for Children and Families, 625,934 California children, or 6.8 percent of all children in the state, live in grandparent-headed households. Another 327,623 children, or 3.5 percent of all children in the state, live in households headed by other relatives.

In California, 294,969 grandparents report that they are responsible for their grandchildren living with them. Blacks and Latinos comprise 54 percent of that total.

In Los Angeles, 30,511 grandparents report they are responsible for their grandchildren living with them, with blacks and Latinos comprising a slightly larger majority.

Relative caregivers explained to the select committee that they provide a vital safety net to children in and out of the foster care system as the children’s parents struggle with substance abuse, mental illness, incarceration, economic hardship, divorce and domestic violence.

The 13-member committee heard a daylong litany of the challenges that affect relative caregivers, including what was described as a circular bureaucracy intent on enforcing illogical and unrealistic rules and regulations, a flimsy support system and limited financial resources.

The relative caregivers told the legislators that they, the children’s kin, receive far less from the state system than non-relatives raising other people’s children, not just in terms of finances but in terms of legal rights and authority, as well.

While professing unconditional love for the children in their care — and asserting their resolve to raise them no matter what — the relatives told of a variety of emergency situations that brought the children to their homes. It all boiled down to this: Either the relative takes the parent-less child or children now, or the state will find someone somewhere who will.

“They’re our blood. You can’t just turn away your blood,” said Jackie Hardy, who is raising her four grandchildren. “No, you’re not prepared for it. How can you get prepared for it? Things happen that are not their [the children’s] fault, but they have to be raised,” the grandmother continued. “I’m all they have. It’s just me and my grandchildren and I don’t get the same benefits for them if I was raising four children who were not related to me.

“There were times when I had to pawn everything of value I had to feed them,” Hardy continued. “I need help. But if I don’t get it, we will survive.”

Xiomara Gumbs is working four jobs to take care of her 13-year-old cousin. “I’m her fourth cousin, so the state doesn’t even consider me a relative, so I’m not entitled to anything,” Gumbs told the legislators. “But I’m all she has. It’s just her and me and I have to work all the jobs I can get so I can give her a decent life. But that’s OK, because no matter what is going on with the state, family is family anyway.”

Sacramento County resident Sharon Adams complained to the committee that the state has separated her young niece and nephew. She said she is caring for the boy, but the state has declared her home to be unfit for his sister and has, therefore, made her eligible for foster parenting or adoption. “How is it possible for my home to be fit for my nephew and not for my niece?” Adams asked. “How can they take my flesh and blood, and give her away to some strangers when I’m capably raising her brother? Nothing these people [the state] do is fair and makes any sense.”

Gumbs’ testimony and that of the aunt was so moving that it prompted committee member Assemblyman Mark Leno to remark: “We need to redefine ‘family.’ There are some things for which we need not write legislation. We need to tell the department [of Social Services] that this [the two women’s problems] is unacceptable and we want it changed now.”

Bass first confronted the problems of relative caregivers while serving as executive director of Community Coalition. She made the overhaul of the state’s foster care system part of her campaign for the Assembly.

“It is no secret that relative caregivers have always been a primary, if informal, source of care for children whose parents are absent,” Bass said. “Therefore, it is extremely important that we ensure that relatives who have the responsibility for these children also have the support, funding and legal authority that is currently available to non-relative families.”

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