It came from the Georgia Department of Human Services earlier this summer. The letter is full of legal jargon, but a black box in the middle gets your attention. “Delinquency Notification – Final Notice Before Legal Action.”
It’s a warning that she owes money: nearly $13,000.
The arrears are unpaid child support — not for another parent, but for the government, because Martinez’ oldest children have been in foster care. The state has been billing her for the costs.
The amount of debt itself might be shocking, but this letter goes further. It says that if she doesn’t pay a portion soon, the state will seek to put her in jail.
The threat facing Martinez reveals the harsh consequences of this little-known aspect of the child welfare system: charging parents for foster care.
The practice is becoming less popular. Parents with child welfare cases are almost always poor. So studies show the extra bill just makes it harder for them to regain custody of their kids. On top of that, states often waste money trying to collect payments from them, said Jill D. Berrick, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and an expert in these policies.
“They’re extremely costly to the state, and they don’t actually result in the outcome that we want, which first and foremost is for parents to be good parents, safe parents to their kids,” she said.
The federal government recommended in 2022 that states stop pursuing these payments for foster care except in rare circumstances. (The announcement followed a national NPR investigation.) Several states including Washington, Michigan and California have since ended or dramatically cut back this practice.
This past August, Georgia joined them. The state child welfare agency updated its policy to limit how often it seeks this child support.
But for now, the change only affects future cases. According to state data, about 4,000 parents are still on the hook for these child support bills, which can follow them long after their cases with the foster care system close.
Among them is Martinez. She’s now scared she could lose what she hasn’t already lost.
A painful history
Her case started more than six years ago, before her youngest children were born.
Martinez had six kids then and they were in crisis. She discovered her ex-boyfriend was abusing her daughter. He was arrested and she testified to put him in prison. But without his income, she couldn’t afford their rent. Soon, her family was evicted.
All seven of them spent a night in their van.
Martinez knew they needed help. But she didn’t have any friends or family to call. She grew up in foster care herself in the northeast.
All she could think of was the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services because that’s where her family received food stamps. She hoped the agency could also provide resources for housing.
“I didn’t know that that was going to change my life completely, but it did,” she said. “That very same day, my six kids got taken away.”
The court documents for Martinez’ case say that her family was “found” living in a van. DFCS and a judge argued it was unsafe for her kids to be homeless. But instead of connecting her family to housing, the state put her kids in foster care.
“The last thing I want is for my kids to be taken again because I can’t pay child support,”
Annalinda Martinez
This aligns with WABE and ProPublica’s previous reporting, documenting how the state child welfare agency has dedicated little of its money to housing needs even as it reported housing as a reason for removing children in 20% of cases.
For Martinez, all she saw was how she sought help and the state responded by taking her kids. The unfairness of the situation sent her into a spiral. She was defiant. She refused to do anything that her caseworkers asked.
“I looked at them more so as, ‘You just abducted my kids. You just kidnapped my kids, and now you’re talking to me like you’re trying to help me?’” she said. “And it just became a battle.”
She understands now that this only made things worse. But at the time, she said she was confused and angry with everyone in the child welfare system.
That frustration only grew when she learned DFCS wanted her to pay for her kids’ foster care — the same payments the agency is asking from her now. The state charged her $100 a month.
She didn’t see how she could ever afford the three-bedroom home DFCS required, all while she also had to pay child support.
“And so finally it just made me feel like, okay, I can’t do this,” she said. “I have to pay that, so I can’t do this. So how am I supposed to get my kids back?”
After about a year and a half, Martinez said the court pressured her to surrender her rights as a parent. She agreed. She believed it would allow her kids to be adopted together into the same home — although that adoption later fell through.
Martinez said the day she surrendered at the courthouse was the most painful of her life.
“I just felt like my world had just ended,” she said.
Fear of losing more
That was almost five years ago.
The reason the state’s recent letter has made Martinez so afraid is because her story didn’t end there.
At first, she did sink deeper into this hurt and angry place. She was desperate for something that would make her forget that she had permanently lost her kids. She tried marijuana to numb her feelings. Then, she used cocaine.
The problem was she was pregnant. So when she gave birth to her youngest daughter a couple of months later, DFCS took her too.
But it was then that her perspective finally started to shift. She saw her own role in her circumstances because she knew she had used those drugs.
“To put her in a position where she can’t afford to take care of those children … makes no sense to me at all.”
Judge Michael Key, chair of the Georgia Child Support Commission
She began complying. She entered rehab and then joined an accountability program called Family Treatment Court. She participated in therapy.
“My mind just did a whole U-Turn,” she said. “I don’t think it was positive thinking. It was just like — it just is. So just deal with it.”
Martinez learned acceptance. She stopped fighting. She became different, calm.
For several years, she has been stable, living with her longtime boyfriend in this apartment. She had her youngest son. The court also returned her youngest daughter.
“I have my child back and legally have her back now, so it feels good, you know,” she said.
There isn’t much relief in Martinez’ voice, though. She still doesn’t know if her oldest kids are okay.
The state also continues to demand these child support payments. Around the time she surrendered, Georgia even increased her amount to $472 a month. With interest, the monthly bill exceeds $500.
She’s never been able to afford the amount.
The state already suspended her license and revoked her passport. Now, this letter talks about jail. Martinez said that would prevent her from watching her kids, which would prevent her boyfriend from going to work. If they can’t pay the bills, what would come next?
“The last thing I want is for my kids to be taken again because I can’t pay child support,” she said.
Forever in debt
The state Department of Human Services wouldn’t answer questions about Martinez’ case, citing confidentiality laws.
Spokesperson Ellen Brown said the agency updated its child support policy for foster care cases because of the shift in federal guidance. “We thought this change would be best for the families we serve,” she said.
She said the agency is considering how to handle debt that has accumulated from previous cases, like Martinez’. Other states offer potential paths: California erased these arrears entirely. According to Berrick, the professor, Massachusetts is reviewing past cases one by one.
Berrick is glad to hear Georgia is cutting back on this practice of charging for foster care. But she said Martinez’ case demonstrates the absurd priorities it continues to impose on parents in the state.
“You’re not allowing her to spend that $500 on her child. You’re forcing her to spend it on the state,” she said. “The state is contributing to the precarity of that family’s wellbeing.”
Several experts who work in the state’s child welfare system also told WABE that they couldn’t see the purpose in saddling a mother with this debt.
Judge Michael Key, who is chair of the state Child Support Commission and has overseen child welfare cases in west Georgia for 35 years, shook his head when he heard the details of Martinez’ case.
“To put her in a position where she can’t afford to take care of those children and they would take the children away, makes no sense to me at all,” he said. “That’s an outcome that bothers me.”
He said disrupting another family that way is not in the best interest of children.
Martinez has tried to get legal assistance to change the amount of money she owes the state but she hasn’t been successful. In the meantime, a Cobb County nonprofit has set up a fundraiser to assist with her debt.
On her own, she knows she will never be able to put a dent in $13,000.
That means this threat will always be hanging over her. And the amount keeps growing by more than $500 every month.
“I feel like it’s going to be with me for the rest of my life,” she said.
Reporter Stephannie Stokes can be reached by email at sstokes@wabe.org.
