A Social Services office in Phoenix used to house babies who are taken away from families to put into foster homes. There are many more children than foster homes. Image from CBS5 Arizona.

Health Impact News Comments

KPHO CBS5 in Arizona recently reported that there are so many children being removed from homes and put into foster care in Arizona, that there is a severe shortage of foster homes, and that babies and children are being “housed” in social services’ office buildings:

This year so far 11 percent more kids are being removed from unsafe homes. There are more than 16,000 kids statewide in foster homes or group homes right now. Because most of those homes are at capacity, some kids end up sleeping inside a dozen or so DCS office buildings throughout Maricopa and Pima counties. “In the 17 years I’ve been here the biggest shock to me is when we bought cribs,” says DCS program manager Gene Burns. (Source.)

The Arizona Republic reported in October 2014 that Arizona has by far the highest rate of children removed from their homes and placed in foster care of any state in the U.S. While most other states in the U.S. are seeing declines in foster care placements, Arizona is seeing the biggest percentage of increase among U.S. states. Over the past decade, Arizona had the second largest increase in the nation, adding 7,296 children. Texas, with 4 times the population, had the most with 8,294. (Source.)

So why is Arizona putting so many children into foster care? Are there really that many more abusive homes in Arizona than the rest of the country?

Since we started MedicalKidnap.com, we have had more parents from Arizona contact us than any other state with their stories of alleged medical kidnappings. As we previously reported, Arizona has a history of medically kidnapping children from parents who disagree with doctors. (See: A History of Medical Kidnapping at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.)

We have also reported on how states gain huge benefits from medicaid for every child they take away from parents, billing all of their medical bills to medicaid allowing doctors to perform whatever medical procedures they choose to use, with no oversight from an insurance company. (See: The Medical Kidnapping Business: Bilking Medicaid.)

One parent told us that Arizona has basically prevented some budget cuts and kept certain government jobs intact simply by taking more foster care children into the system for the federal reimbursements.

In the meantime, babies and children taken from “abusive” homes end up sleeping in social services’ offices until they can be placed in group homes or other foster care institutions.

What is going on in Arizona??