Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

It's become so difficult for Child Protective Services to place children in foster care that some are sleeping in state offices and, now, in hotels. It's happening often enough that the state agency has started regulating the practice.

Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Department of Family and Protective Services, which oversees CPS, said the use of hotels began last month "to respond to the basic comfort and hygiene needs of these children." He could not say how many children have been housed in hotels since then.

The policy changes come as the Legislature works to overhaul CPS, which is plagued by high caseloads and high staff turnover. The House Human Services Committee will hear public testimony on CPS-related bills today, and a Senate panel approved a major overhaul package on Tuesday that would reduce caseloads for state workers and increase oversight of agencies that place children in foster care.

"We've got a foster-care capacity crisis," said Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

McCown, a former state district judge, said he worries that CPS is not equipped to handle children who may be on their way from the scandal-racked Texas Youth Commission, which in recent days has been preparing to release 473 youths who had completed their sentences but were being held because of paperwork problems.

The Youth Commission has notified CPS that some of those children may need placement in foster care, officials with both agencies confirmed Wednesday, though they did not say how many. Youth Commission spokesman Jim Hurley said that about 100 of the 4,600 children in Youth Commission lockups are foster children.

"If CPS is unable to take the kids, we are not going to turn them loose," he said. "We're not dumping them all on CPS."

Some of the children can return to their original foster families, some will need a new foster home, and others will need residential treatment to get their lives back on track, said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and author of the Senate's CPS reform bill.

"Clearly, these will be tough cases, because there will be concerns about whatever behavior led them to TYC," she said.

Meanwhile, CPS has decided that hotel rooms are preferable to state offices when a child has nowhere to go, Crimmins said. In February, 42 children spent at least one night in a state office, he said — usually children who are hard to place because they have special emotional or behavioral needs. In January, 37 stayed in offices.

"Obviously, a hotel is much better than sleeping in a caseworker's office, but that's creating another set of problems," said Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio. "Who's supervising these children?"

In a March 26 internal CPS memo, a top official told managers that before allowing a child to stay in a hotel room or office, workers must "make a diligent effort" to place the child in a licensed foster home.

"Staying in a DFPS office overnight should be the choice of last resort unless special circumstances exist," says the memo, which also says that a child should be supervised by at least two adults who are both awake.

A proposal approved by a Senate committee Tuesday would essentially put into law what CPS is already doing. The proposal, by Uresti, would allow CPS employees with criminal history checks on file to "provide temporary emergency care" for a child if the agency cannot find an appropriate placement, although it does not specify where they should provide that care. It would also allow emergency shelters to exceed their capacity for no more than 48 hours if needed.

"There's probably a better way to deal with the situation, and we're still working on that," Uresti said. "The bigger problem is, obviously, we need more foster care providers."

State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, has a bill before a House panel today that would require CPS to figure out ways to increase capacity.