LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) — At a heated House Oversight hearing in Lansing Tuesday, the head of the department overseeing Children’s Protective Services faced questions over how the state responded to a Monroe County family found living in squalor.
Watch Ross's full report:
Director Elizabeth Hertel defended the response of CPS investigators who were alerted multiple times to a family, including two young children, found living in a tent. Inside was food, a space heater and a mattress on the ground.
The only bathroom available was in the home next door.
RELATED: Monroe sheriff says CPS hindered efforts to help children found living in tent
Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough says his deputies were stymied on three different occasions by state officials after receiving calls over an 18-month period, told that the conditions the family was living in were sufficient.
“It was obvious…that the living conditions were challenging and the children definitely appeared to be unbathed,” Sheriff Troy Goodnough said.
The final time, they were living in a car: one of the children had severe head lice, deputies said, and said she hadn’t bathed in months.
Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough said his deputies didn’t want to separate the children from their parents, but did want Children’s Protective Services to help put the family in a better place.
Lawmakers upset
“When I look at a $34 billion budget…and I show those photos to any citizen in the state of Michigan and I say to them that Child Protective Services visited this dwelling and deemed it to meet the standards of safety, they would say that I’m crazy,” said Rep. Jay DeBoyer, a Republican from Clay Twp who chairs the House Oversight Committee.
Hertel pushed back, saying that CPS investigators did not find that the living conditions constituted neglect, and that the law—as written today—prevented them from doing more.
“It is not the role of the department to tell families how they should live,” Hertel said, stressing that poverty alone does not constitute neglect.
“No, the role of the department is to protect children,” DeBoyer said. “Which quite frankly is not being done here…we write tickets to people who let their dogs live in that condition in the winter time.”
As 7 News Detroit first reported last month, the first call to police was made on Nov. 30, 2023, when an anonymous caller reported seeing children living in a tent behind a home in Temperance, Michigan, about 20 minutes north of Toledo.
The tent was covered with a tarp, deputies noted, and living inside were two small children, a mother and grandfather.
Deputies were told that the childrens’ mother was dealing with serious health problems and was short of funds.
When deputies encountered the family again the following year, again living in the tent, both of the children could be heard coughing and had been taken to urgent care the day prior.
Sheriff Goodnough says his deputies were told by the agency that the family's living conditions were sufficient.
In her comments Tuesday, Hertel reiterated that position, but did say that “while the children and family may not have been subject to neglect, the children’s welfare was fine—they had access to food and water—we know that no one wants to be living in a tent. Probably.”
Lawmakers from both parties shared their frustration.
Rep. Angela Rigas, a Republican from Caledonia, repeatedly asked Hertel whether she would let her children live in similar conditions.
Rep. Reggie Miller, a Democrat from Van Buren Twp., asked: “Do you really believe it’s acceptable for our kids to grow up in the state in tents and squalor…while soiled and having lice in their hair?”
“No, I don’t think it’s okay,” Hertel said. “Which is why we’ve taken the steps, proactively, to pair up staff that we have internally to the department with child welfare.”
Connecting families with resources
Hertel said that while caseworkers can only investigate potential abuse or neglect, her department is working to do more by pairing CPS caseworkers with eligibility specialists.
They can connect families with resources like temporary housing, help with finding a job or food and follow a family going forward.
Within five months of rolling out the program two years ago, Hertel said the agency was able to connect 1,000 families with services.
In this case, Hertel said the family did spend time living in a shelter, temporarily. But they would eventually be back on the street, found earlier this year living in their car.
By then, one of the children was found with severe head lice and said she'd not bathed in months.
“We were not aware that the shelter placement didn’t work out, and the reason was that we didn’t have an ongoing case with the family,” Hertel said, noting that eligibility specialists are not yet deployed in every Michigan county, including Monroe.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.