Amid growing calls for reform, New York is overhauling financial support for adopted families to ensure the funding benefits children.
In December, Gov. Hochul and state lawmakers reached a deal to block adoptive parents from collecting checks on behalf of kids no longer in their care, including those forced back into the foster system. Final details of the law were ironed out this week as the Legislature reconvened for the 2025 session.
“This bill makes critical changes that will support families that participate in the adoption process,” Hochul wrote in a Dec. 21 memo. “However, changes were necessary to ensure funds are directed to parents who are appropriately caring for their child, and exclude individuals in situations of abuse or neglect.”
“I am pleased to have reached an agreement with the Legislature to enact these changes. On the basis of this agreement, I am pleased to sign this bill.”
For at least a decade, adopted children and their advocates warned payments were set up in such a way that parents could collect thousands of dollars each month for children with disabilities or otherwise considered “hard to place” — even after they were returned to foster care or taken in by another family.
In some cases, young people were forced to go out on their own or wound up in homeless shelters, including Essence Flowers, who last year told the Daily News about the struggle to rebuild her life after she was forced out of her adoptive home.
In New York City alone, at least $3.5 million in adoption subsidies were sent to families no longer eligible for the support, a 2021 comptroller audit found.
But reforms took time. Lawmakers had to narrowly craft the bill to avoid creating incentives for adopted teens to leave home or jeopardizing part of the adoption subsidy funded with federal money.
As part of the deal reached between Hochul and the Legislature, some parts of the law remain on pause until they receive federal approval. Changes resulting from that agreement will be passed as a chapter amendment this session.
At the end of last year, there were 6,559 families in New York City receiving subsidies on behalf of more than 10,000 adopted children, according to the Administration for Children’s Services. Forty-four children were back in foster care after previously being adopted.
Monthly checks start at more than $1,000 per month in the city and can exceed $3,000 for disabled and “hard to place” children, according to the latest rates.
Advocates cheered the law’s passage after a protracted campaign that could be traced back to at least 2014.
“It’s been a long-time coming,” said Betsy Kramer, the director of policy and special litigation at Lawyers for Children. “And it’s long overdue, and will bring great relief to many children and to the people who step into care for children when their adoptive parents are no longer providing any support.”
“There are too many young people who aren’t being supported by their adoptive parents, and that money can make the difference for them between having a stable, safe place to live and being homeless.”