California Audit Finds Sex Offenders Living in Homes Licensed for Foster Care, Child

This Was a Nightmare Gradually Coming...

....I was in middle management with the State of California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing up until I was forced to medically retire in 2000.

The problem with sex offenders in licensed homes was a growing concern for me and the unit of Licensing Analyst, I supervised.

The problem was. The analyst once was responsible for going through any CIAC hits on possible criminal issues regarding adults living in, or associated with (like employees) the licensed facility.

Although this duty, at times, overwhelmed my unit, we would personally contact the facility and schedule an in person meeting with the suspected offender, or person with a CIAC criminal history hit. This allowed us to observe the person, and require that they get us certain information to help us write up an exemption, or require they not be hired (if an employee) or close the facility because it was illegal to make a family member move out of a licensed home, when, in fact, they had a criminal history that did not meet our guidelines.

Because we were so overwhelmed, Sacramento took the practice of the local office investigating the CIAC hit out of our hands, and handed it off to a group of analysts in Sacramento to investigate. This seriously weakened the program's ability to weed out the bad people through an in person meeting and gathering the necessary paperwork to clear them, or not clear them.

From 1997 through my year of forced medical retirement, I started to see more and more hard-core criminals falling through the cracks of bigger government, and most of the time. The worker in Sacramento never did the follow through, or were given falsified papers, and they never did the follow up checks to make sure everything was legal. In turn they issued exemptions to people that the local office would never have allowed to slip through the cracks or sneak by us, and in those three years, we started to see the beginnings of having people who didn't belong in a licensed facility, in the facility causing mayhem, abuse, and sexual offenses (especially with children in care).

The system became flawed because the leadership in Sacramento thought they had a better way to streamline the system, and make it move more quickly and efficiently.

In fact, it was flawed, and children and adults in our licensed care homes were being victimized.

So to make this long explanation short, this post and new story link do not surprise me one bit.

What is sad, is that because of budget cuts, this department is not hiring to replace those who retire or move to another job or department, and the agency is seriously understaffed, and there will be more of this kind of problems in the coming days because of the lunacy at the top of the food chain (Sacramento Leadership)?

Great story. I can completely relate, and I am glad I no longer have to deal with the day-to-day concerns and worries of major violations like the ones in this story, hitting the fan. :tear: