NATION : 500,000 Children Termed Adrift
More than half a million American children are living in foster homes, hospitals and detention facilities and the number could grow to 840,000 in 1995, according to a congressional report released today.
Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who announced the report’s findings, called on government social agencies to work harder to keep families together. “We are devastating hundreds of thousands of children on an annual basis in this country,” Miller told a news conference.
He said social workers have been overwhelmed by family breakups resulting from homelessness, use of crack--a smokable, highly addictive form of cocaine--and by the disease AIDS. Miller also blamed federal budget cutbacks engineered by then-President Ronald Reagan for the half million children set adrift, saying the problem is “Ronald Reagan’s legacy to the 1990s.”
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