CTV News has learned that because of the shortage of foster care homes, some children in Regina are being housed in hotels.
Saskatchewan Child and Family Services confirmed on Friday that on five different occasions over the past month, children had to be housed at local hotels for a few days at a time. On the Thursday, 13 kids spent the night in hotel rooms.
“We have a ministry staff that’s on site – they’re in the room or in hotel with the children at all times, and we also have partnered with some of our community-based partners to provide some additional staff,” said the agency’s executive director, Natalie Huber.
She notes the number of children taken in by Child and Family Services in the Regina area has more than doubled in the past few weeks.
When Child and Family Services is first called in, they look at the situation and decide if they can provide support to the family so the child can stay in the home. If not, they look to see if there are any extended family members who could take the child. Failing that, the child is placed in a foster home.
But the foster homes in Regina are currently full. When that happens there are emergency placements with local organizations that can take as many as 40 kids in, but those spaces are also all filled up.
“In the foster home system right now, we just don’t have a lot of available options,” Huber said.
“(Using hotel rooms) is not something that we see as a long-term option…If it’s a continued trend, we will be looking at other emergency receiving options.”
The Saskatchewan NDP’s social services critic says the province’s foster care system “is a mess.”
“Too many children are unsupported, and some have been in danger. We know this government doesn’t have enough frontline case workers and we know the child protection system is mired in bad communication and poor recordkeeping.” David Forbes said in a news release Friday.
“We also suspect that disorganization and lack of frontline support is scaring off foster parents and potential foster parents.”
The Opposition is calling for an overhaul of Saskatchewan's child welfare system, including licensing foster homes, using licensed social workers, a hard cap on the number of children in a foster home and more frontline care workers and training.
Two recent cases in Winnipeg show how housing children in hotels can go horribly wrong. One girl was killed and another permanently injured. Both were in the custody of Manitoba's Ministry of Social Services, and being housed in hotels – a practice the Manitoba government has since banned.
Based on a report by CTV Regina’s Dale Hunter
