The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a $1.7 trillion operation budget for the next fiscal year, a 12 percent increase over its already enormous annual budget.
The agency seeks billions more in taxpayer dollars to fund newly-proposed expenditures, including a sexual gender minority research office and grants to abortion providers.
However, the agency has yet to ask for funds to fix the longstanding practice of giving children taken into foster care garbage bags to hold their belongings.
Although it’s been some 30 years, Tee Marie Hanible, a decorated U.S. Marine gunnery sergeant and former co-star of Fox’s American Grit, vividly remembers the day she and her older brother arrived at their foster home with nothing more than a small plastic bag holding their belongings.
“It was literally an Osco drugstore bag, which is a step up, I guess you could say, from the garbage bags they usually give foster kids,” Hanible told The Epoch Times.
Hanible chronicles the life that landed her in the foster care system in her book “The Warrior Code.”
She has talked nationally about the system and also founded Operation Heroes Connect, a nonprofit organization that includes, among its array of charity work, providing suitcases to children in foster care.
Grassroots Drive
Kathy Adler was so appalled when she learned foster kids were being handed garbage bags at what she said “is likely one of the most degrading” times of their lives that she started a grassroots drive for suitcases for foster children in her hometown of Grand Prairie, Texas.
The community’s reaction was swift. Adler came home to hundreds of suitcases piled at her front door—many newly bought still with their price tags.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Adler, who learned about foster children in Texas being given garbage bags from her daughter, a longtime foster care provider for the state.
“I mean, how hard is it for the system to at least provide these kids with a suitcase?”
Adler continues her efforts through a Facebook group called Suitcases for Kids in Foster Care.
Just this month, Texas Rep. John Bucy (R-Austin) introduced a bill that would require the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DTFPS) to end its longtime practice of giving children only a garbage bag to hold their belongings in when they are taken into state custody.
The bill directs the agency to instead provide the children with either a backpack or a duffel bag.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, DTFPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said the agency has “developed strong relationships with organizations across the state to collect backpacks, duffel bags, and other luggage for children entering foster care.” However, Gonzales also admitted there was “not necessarily a consistent supply chain.”
According to agency records, 9,623 children in Texas were removed from their homes and placed in foster care.
As of now, the only state that funds the provision of suitcases for foster children is Illinois.
State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit (D-Chicago) spearheaded the legislation in 2021. Kifowit, also an ex-Marine, told The Epoch Times she learned of the practice from Hanible when she met her at an event.
Federal Inaction
So far, there have been no known efforts to fund suitcases for foster children on the federal level.In spite of accounting for one of the largest government operating budgets, a history of budgetary requests shows the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for half the funding for state foster care programs, has never moved to change the practice.
With May being National Foster Care Month, many foster care advocates are hoping it will inspire lawmakers to make it a priority.
Several petitions aimed at the practice have been spearheaded over the years, with many like Hanible writing about the humiliation that comes with putting your things in a trash bag.
Marsha Todd Austen, a co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Hope In A Suitcase, one of the largest nonprofits in the U.S. dedicated to replacing the government-issued trash bag with something more dignified, told The Epoch Times, that in most cases, children are removed from their homes under emergency circumstances and are given only minutes by social workers to grab what is most important to them.
“So in that moment, it’s just sending a terrible message to kids who already feel like they are wanted—to hand them over a trash bag,” she said.
Austen also pointed out that many kids removed from their homes are teenagers who are already dealing with “normal teenage problems.”
That’s why her group donates the more hip “duffel bag,” she said.
The all-volunteer organization also fills each duffle bag they provide the children with a variety of essentials, from toothbrushes to pajamas, sweat pants, and other items and things like age-appropriate stuffies to items with teen appeal, including popular snacks.
Hope In A Suitcase also holds shopping days for foster children to come in and pick out clothes, shoes, and other items from its Hope Boutique. All the items are brand new, with visits arranged through social workers.
The group has provided more than 20,000 filled duffel bags to foster children under the custody of the State of California.
Hanible said it is inexcusable that after decades of children suffering the humiliation of being handed a trash bag to “put your stuff in,” the American government still hasn’t addressed the practice.
“You’re already feeling like garbage because this awful thing is happening to you,” she said, “you are losing your home, your sense of security, your world is falling apart, and then some social worker hands you a garbage bag.”
The DHHS did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times about the government giving foster children garbage bags to hold their belongings. Texas Health and Human Services told The Epoch Times it was a Department of Family and Protective Services issue. The agency did not respond.
