MONROE, Mich. (WXYZ) — A Michigan sheriff says his office struggled repeatedly to find help from Children’s Protective Services for two children found living in a tent.
Watch Ross Jones' full investigation in the video below
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 that a family of four was living in squalor.
7 News Detroit is not identifying the family and Children’s Protective Services—while not addressing specifics of the case—says the sheriff’s comments make it harder for other needy families to seek help.
But the sheriff maintains that his own struggle navigating the system illustrates how children and families can easily slip through the cracks.
“My mission on this is not to cause disruption or upheaval,” said Sheriff Goodnough. "It’s to change policy and make change so that whatever is needed…that we don’t have to have this conversation again.”
Out in the cold
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.
“It was obvious…that the living conditions were challenging,” Goodnough said, “and the children definitely appeared to be unbathed.”
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Inside the tent, deputies noted that they found food, a space heater and a mattress on the ground. The family said they could use the bathroom in the home next door if they needed to, and that the children were not in school.
Deputies were told that the childrens' mother was dealing with serious health problems and was short of funds.
The sheriff’s office did not want to separate the family, Goodnough said, but wanted them to find better living conditions. Deputies alerted Children’s Protective Services.
“I truly believe the individuals who occupy these positions—what I refer to as the boots on the street—they want to do the right thing, they want to help these children,” Goodnough said.
It is not clear what help, if any, CPS offered after that first visit, but Sheriff Goodnough says his deputies were told by the agnecy that there was nothing the agency could do: the food, heat and mattress inside the tent was sufficient for living.
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A year later in December 2024, deputies would be called again to the same tent behind the same house. This time, a caller raised concern that the children living inside may be sick.
Temperatures were in the low 40s that night and as a deputy spoke to the grandfather, the sounds of children coughing could be heard from the tent, according to body camera video.
The family said they returned to the tent a week earlier after being kicked out of their home.
“Is the young one sick?” asked a deputy.
“Yeah, they both got a cough,” the grandfather said. “She just took them to urgent care yesterday.”
One of the children “looked dirty,” deputies wrote, while another was wearing a soiled diaper barely covering her body. Both children were still not enrolled in school, and their mother—still battling serious health problems—didn’t have a job.
She said her ex-boyfriend occasionally drops off food for the kids to eat, according to police records.
“Our deputies said man, we’ve got to do something here,” Sheriff Goodnough recalled.
But he said CPS officials responded: "We’ve investigated this. There’s not much we can do."
Only four months later, deputies would encounter the family again.
‘There’s nobody to help’
This time, they weren’t living in a tent but in a car. They’d been there for three weeks, deputies were told.
One of the children “could not remember the last time she took a shower,” according to police records, but said it was “well before Christmas.”
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Her head lice was so severe that “bugs were visibly falling out of her hair," a deputy wrote. When she needs to use a restroom, she said she would sometimes go to “the bathroom on herself.”
For the third time, the sheriff’s office said it notified CPS, who told deputies they were “unable to help without an active case being open.”
“You have a family in a car that we’ve brought into our facility now that you see they are not meeting their basic needs,” Goodnough said, “and there’s nobody to help.”
Rep. Luke Meerman, a Republican from Coopersville, chairs the House Oversight Subcommittee on Child Welfare which oversees CPS.
“We should be helping these families before the children need to be taken," Meerman said. "Taking children out of a family is the last thing the state should ever do."
Meerman learned of the sheriff's frustrations navigating CPS through his oversight hearings, where Goodnough recently testified.
“To me, that’s the sign of a broken system," Meerman said. "That’s failing the Michigan families when they need it most."
Goodnough says his deputies ultimately took the action that he hoped CPS would, helping to line up temporary shelter for the family through a nearby church.
At the same time, the sheriff said he reached out directly to CPS to express his concerns, and it was only then, he says, that the agency became “fully engaged” with the family.
He still doesn’t understand why it took this long.
“When I posed that question to an individual at CPS, they said: 'Well, they’re homeless and they have no money. What do you want us to do?'” Goodnough said.
“And my question was: 'Because they’re homeless and they have no money, we wash our hands of it?'”
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CPS pushes back
In a statement, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services pushes back on the sheriff’s comments, saying in part:
Every day, many families across Michigan are faced with difficult decisions – do they pay rent or put food on the table –but these are not signs of parental failure, these are signs of hardship due to a lack of resources. Mislabeling poverty as neglect is harmful to families – it adds another barrier that prevents families from reaching out for help. Child welfare should support, not penalize families.
Families shouldn’t be punished for conditions beyond their control and no one, not even the Monroe County Sheriff, should publicly display photos of a family’s living conditions during a televised hearing, making it difficult for the family to seek help and subjecting them to media exposure. Keeping kids safe also means protecting their safety and privacy by following federal and state laws and not disclosing personally identifiable information or publicly sharing photos or case-related documents
When the department doesn’t find evidence of abuse or neglect, a spokeswoman said they “connect families to child abuse and neglect prevention resources in their local community who may work directly with the family to help meet their unique needs such as food, housing, transportation, and health care.”
Citing privacy laws, they would not comment on the specifics of this case.
“They’re in a safe place now," Goodnough said, "which we should have done back in November of '23."
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.