Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2866, and I want to congratulate my good friends, Representatives Sewell, Kelly, and Smucker for this legislation to reduce barriers for relative caregivers. Ironically, in the 1990s, when the crack cocaine epidemic hit, that was the first time that women started using drugs equal to men. It hadn't happened before, and so families fell apart. One of the things that happened, in the early 1990s, was in the middle of the night a grandmother might be called and three grandchildren delivered to her by Children's Protective Services. The grandmother would take the children without any support and without any knowledge of how to deal with the trauma that the children faced. During those years, we actually discriminated against relatives. We said very negative things about them such as: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree; and, if your daughter wound up on drugs, why should we give the children to you? So during those years, we would rather pay a stranger--and there can be wonderful foster parents--but a stranger to take care of children instead of families. One of the things we did in Los Angeles was we organized the grandmothers, and we trained them how to go before the board of supervisors and advocate on their own behalf. That happened all around the country. So there really was a movement of relatives who rose up and said: We want our children; we just need help.…”