New reporting shows that from 2011 – 2022, the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) kept $18.8 million in Social Security Survivors Benefits meant for children whose parents died to pay for foster care-related costs.

“Instead of conserving money to put foster children whose parents died on a pathway towards financial security and independence, ACS kept millions in federal Survivors Benefits,” read a statement from The Legal Aid Society. “This is simply reprehensible, and ACS must create mechanisms to allow these individuals to be retrospectively compensated.”

Last week, Legal Aid and Lawyers For Children condemned a proposed policy from the ACS that fails to protect the Social Security Disability Benefits of disabled children in foster care and further called on ACS to amend current policy in order to ensure that foster youth whose Survivors Benefits ACS has already collected and kept are retroactively made whole.

NBC4 NY covered the issue in a recent broadcast, watch the full piece here.