Q&A
Inquiry into allegations of homophobia against foster care agency
2:25:12
ยท
107 sec
Council Member Stevens investigates claims of homophobia within a foster care agency, expressing concern about the impact on LGBTQ youth in the system. The foster parents share their experiences of discrimination and lack of action from authorities.
- Foster parents reported homophobia to agency management and ACS, but no action was taken
- A whistleblower from the Office of Special Investigations confirmed the targeting of the gay foster parents
- The council member emphasizes the importance of addressing such discrimination, especially given the high number of LGBTQ youth in the system
Althea Stevens
2:25:12
And there and there were some you said and also in the testimony, I don't think it was you.
2:25:16
I think it was your husband who mentioned that there was allegations against the agency around homophobia.
2:25:22
Could you just talk to me a little bit more about that?
2:25:24
Because that to me is concerning.
2:25:25
Because like I said, I had a hearing on that.
2:25:27
And as you can hear, the commissioner also said that that is something that's not tolerated.
2:25:31
And so for me, that is also really important to kind of highlight, especially because we have such a high number of LGBT youth in the system.
2:25:38
And if we have an agency that are doing homophobic things, that's a huge problem for me.
Everson Ladson
2:25:42
Yes.
2:25:43
So the very first time that we reported this to the agency itself was to the caseworker's manager in November of twenty twenty three.
2:25:51
There nothing came about.
2:25:53
Then when the first set of false allegations by the agency against us were filed in April and May of twenty twenty four, ACS actually made note in their final report when they were explaining why those allegations were unfounded that we had voiced concern to them about the fact that we were being targeted for being gay.
2:26:12
So they put it in their reports, but no one reached out to us.
2:26:15
No one reached out to the caseworker.
2:26:17
There was nothing that took place in
Althea Stevens
2:26:18
the And I remember because I was part of the interview, but when I saw the footage, it taught this the the ACS worker admitted that it was that the agency was doing this because of that, and you guys had it on a recording.
2:26:31
Correct?
Everson Ladson
2:26:31
Yes.
2:26:32
That is correct.
2:26:32
OSI.
Fernando Canteli de Castro
2:26:33
Yeah.
2:26:33
One site case worker knew it and said that the agency was not doing anything to address it.
Everson Ladson
2:26:37
Yeah.
2:26:37
This is the office of special investigations, which actually responds to all the invest all investigations into foster families.
2:26:44
It was a whistleblower from within that department who told us that everyone basically knew that we were targeted for being gay and that they weren't willing to do anything about it.
2:26:53
Who also said, by the way, that the allegations were going to continue, which is what exactly we're seeing now.