Image from NBC Local TV 4 in L.A.
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Kim Baldonado of NBC news in Los Angeles reported this week that several foster care kids have come out into the open to testify about abuses allegedly committed in California’s foster care program. In a press conference, former foster care children who are now young adults testified to horrendous abuses including: being tortured by “specially-made tools,” and being “abused verbally, physically and sexually.”
“We’re letting you hear our voices now because we were silent for too long,” former foster child Saleena Galvan said.
The former foster kids have joined together in a lawsuit to sue Interim Care Foster Agency in California. The lawsuit claims the children were “caught in an illegal, abusive, violent, concealed, unconscionable ‘kids for cash’ operation from 2006 to 2013.”
Attorney L. Wallace Pate alleges that a “kids for cash” operation bilked the government of hundreds of thousands of dollars. NBC 4 reports:
The state pays private agencies about $2,000 a month per child. The agencies are allowed to keep as much as 60 percent of the state money to pay for rent, supplies, and personnel to ensure foster children are being cared for, but Pate claims that was not the case with her clients.
“The lawsuit alleges these children lived in seven different homes, none were certified,” Pate said. “They were evicted from four facilities and were homeless.”
Watch the press conference:
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