California counties regularly take the Social Security benefits of foster youth who are disabled or whose parents have died. Advocates say it amounts to children paying for their own foster care.
“Neither federal nor state law prohibits the offsetting of foster care benefits for youth,” said Scott Murray, California Department of Social Services spokesman. “The county may use those funds for the youth’s daily care and maintenance.”
San Francisco’s Human Services Agency hired a company to apply for benefits on foster youths’ behalf. A 2019 memo requesting a contract extension, said the agency was handling the benefits of 67 youth and “applies the SSI to placement costs in the majority of situations or gives directly to the caregiver.”
In the state budget Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last month, lawmakers included new requirements that counties help young adults transitioning out of foster care apply for Social Security benefits. “Counties understand this as a way to get kids connected to federal benefits but also maximize federal funding streams,” said Sabrina Forte, director of policy and impact litigation at the Alliance for Children’s Rights. “We just want the counties to be talking about this with the kids.”Tanner’s mother died of breast cancer when Tanner was 6, and she was removed from her father’s custody when she was 7.
“This check is different from every other check my foster parents get,” Tanner recalled. “It had a little memo, it said ‘Survivor Benefits.’”Throughout high school, Tanner said, she contacted her social workers, Butte County officials, the state and the Social Security Administration. She learned the federal government had been sending her survivors benefits to child welfare agencies since 2011, the year her father died.
Now a rising senior studying biomedical sciences, Tanner said she barely can afford her rent in Sacramento.
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