{"id":198514,"date":"2026-04-15T20:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198514\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T20:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:41:08","slug":"nys-highest-court-questions-whether-states-proposed-host-homes-program-would-be-a-shadow-foster-care-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/198514\/","title":{"rendered":"NY\u2019s highest court questions whether state\u2019s proposed host homes program would be a \u2018shadow foster care\u2019 system"},"content":{"rendered":"

A controversial state program that would allow struggling families to temporarily place their children with people who aren\u2019t licensed foster parents was met with skepticism from the state\u2019s highest court<\/a> Tuesday, with judges questioning the lack of legal protections for parents and children and the state\u2019s lack of liability if something goes wrong.<\/p>\n

The program, called Host Homes<\/a>, was proposed by the state\u2019s Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) in 2021 as an alternative to placing children in state custody through the voluntary foster care system for families who don\u2019t have friends or relatives to help raise their child if they\u2019re going through a rough patch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When parents take part in the program they maintain legal custody of their child while they live in another household that has been vetted by a state-approved nonprofit. However, critics of the program point out parents aren\u2019t afforded the comprehensive statutory protections of the state\u2019s foster care system under Host Homes, including the state being liable for the children\u2019s wellbeing and appointed counsel for parents.<\/p>\n

OCFS attorney Beezly Kiernan told the New York Court of Appeals Tuesday that, since parents with friends and relatives are already handing their children off to others in their lives without those protections, Host Homes was simply opening up that opportunity to parents without those connections and established some baseline guidelines for the process.<\/p>\n

That drew sharp questions from nearly all judges on the bench.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is this not creating a shadow system without oversight?\u201d Judge Shirley Troutman asked. \u201cWhy is the state being involved here without the legal protections not, in effect, the creation of a shadow foster care system?\u201d<\/p>\n

Parents handing off their children to people they know is not a fair comparison, Lawyers for Children attorney William Silverman argued Tuesday, because here, they\u2019d be with strangers, and the state\u2019s facilitation of that gives parents the impression that they\u2019d be safe and the state would protect them, which isn\u2019t necessarily the case: If something bad happens to a child in a host home, it\u2019s the birth parent\u2019s responsibility, not the state\u2019s, since parents maintain custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen state involvement is triggered, why aren\u2019t the statutory protections triggered?\u201d Judge Michael Garcia asked. \u201cI just don\u2019t understand it \u2026 Isn\u2019t that really just a way to get around the [state\u2019s] liability issue if you\u2019re saying [the state] doesn\u2019t have custody?\u201d<\/p>\n

The model stems from faith-based Illinois nonprofit Safe Families For Children, which has said<\/a> the host home movement\u2019s goal is \u201cenabling the global Church to return to its historic role of caring for the orphan and the widow.\u201d In 2021, when OCFS proposed adopting the program through New York state, three child advocacy groups sued. The program\u2019s been on hold as the suit\u2019s been working its way through the courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While OCFS has argued allowing families to stay out of foster care and court systems is a positive, advocacy groups like Lawyers for Children and the Legal Aid Society, which sued the state over the program, argue that the foster system preserves the rights of parents and children.<\/p>\n

In an interview with amNew York Law, Legal Aid attorney Betsy Kramer said that, by participating in Host Homes, parents give up the right to make educational and medical decisions for their children, which they retain under voluntary foster care.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, Lawyers for Children has been fighting a losing legal battle against Host Homes. A trial court in Rensselaer County dismissed the organization\u2019s Article 78 challenge against the legislation establishing Host Homes. Then, last year, the Albany-based Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed the lower court\u2019s dismissal in a 3-2 split decision<\/a><\/p>\n

Lower courts siding with OCFS have cited the fact that 38 other states currently have a similar program and say they\u2019ve agreed with the state\u2019s argument that it has the legal standing to create a program like this with its regulatory power.<\/p>\n

\u201c[OCFS] has been delegated broad authority to establish rules, regulations and policies to carry out its powers and duties under the Social Services Law,\u201d Third Department Presiding Justice Elizabeth Garry wrote for the majority in\u00a0Matter of Lawyers for Children v. New York State Office of Children and Family Services. \u201cThat title grants OCFS the authority to designate \u2018authorized agencies\u2019 that are in turn empowered \u2018to care for, to place out or to board out children\u2019 [and] \u2018to arrange for the free care of a child in a family other than that of the child\u2019s parent \u2026 or legal guardian.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Third Department also acknowledged that, though different than voluntary foster care, the Host Homes program has its own set of protections for parents and children: parents must be informed of their legal rights, parents and children must be offered available free or low-cost legal services, local care must be prioritized, parents are allowed to formalize their expectations for continuing contact with their child and consequences exist for host families if they refuse to honor a parent\u2019s request to take their child back.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that parents have always been permitted to place their children in the care of others, the challenged regulations result in increased protections for children, as well as their parents, under such circumstances,\u201d the Third Department wrote.<\/p>\n

Silverman argued Tuesday that, since, unlike other states, New York\u2019s voluntary foster care system legislation is uniquely detailed, it is clear what protections the legislature wanted in place when drawing up plans for children to be cared for by people other than their parents. OCFS can\u2019t act contrary to legislative intent, he said, and creating a program through its regulatory power does that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Silverman added that he feared families could be coerced into this program over voluntary foster care, which Kiernan disagreed with, saying it would be presented to families just like any other of the agency\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

Whether families will be presented with the option to place their children with host families without engaging the foster care system will be decided by the Court of Appeals in the coming months. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A controversial state program that would allow struggling families to temporarily place their children with people who aren\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4207,26427,79088,2710,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-198514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-children","tag-court-of-appeals","tag-foster-care","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}