Baltimore houses troubled kids in offices(no beds, showers, blankets)

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http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FOSTER_CARE?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-06-14-18-23-21

The city's social service agency is housing troubled children in a downtown office building overnight where they sleep upright in plastic chairs. Outraged child welfare advocates have lodged a complaint about the five-month-old practice with the agency's own abuse and neglect hot line.

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"They have protective service workers in there who see the children in this condition and they are not doing anything about it apparently," Mirviss said.

The facility has no showers, and no blankets, pillows or towels are visible, Mirviss told The (Baltimore) Sun after touring the building last week with DSS Director Samuel Chambers Jr. Mirviss said the boys sleep on plastic chairs in the lobby, while the girls sleep in another room on chairs or on one of four thin mattresses on the floor.


Department of Human Resources Secretary Christopher J. McCabe said the office was meant to provide 24-hour service to troubled children, seven days a week. Word of its after-hours status spread, and now police and other social workers drop off children at all hours of the day and night.