NO HOTELS. Georgia, like other states, has seen a big increase in the number of children entering its foster care system — and it’s getting harder to find them a place to call home.

Georgia has more than 15,600 kids in foster care on any given day. In 2022, as many as 90 kids per day were living in hotels. Last year, the state reduced that number to seven.

State lawmakers want to protect that progress. But it will be expensive. The state Division of Family and Children Services has a projected $44 million deficit in its out-of-home care programs, mostly because it is in a “uniquely bad position” when it comes to federal funding, Department of Human Services Commissioner Candice L. Broce told lawmakers last month.

Deficits are difficult for any state agency, but they’re especially troublesome for foster care services because, as Broce put it, “we cannot unhouse or unserve children to get out of the red.”

House lawmakers are proposing to meet the agency halfway. The budget they passed last week includes an extra $22 million for the agency, or half of what they asked.

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