Upstairs, the little race car-shaped beds are ready for children who won't be coming. Downstairs, no one plays in the play pit of colorful plastic balls. The Little Blue House is quiet as two staffers and two social workers wait for a 4-year-old to get back from school and a napping baby to wake.
In the basement, Carl Foster's books list $200,000 in grants for the care of children who are not here.
Foster's Little Blue House -- a former crack house that was gutted and rehabbed into a model facility for children who lost their parents to drug addiction -- is barely used today. A decade ago, when crack ruled the streets of too many Washington neighborhoods, the Little Blue House was a godsend, a place where babies and toddlers whose mothers had dumped them at the hospital or abandoned them in cars could get loving care until they were adopted or placed with relatives.
But the crack craze subsided, and after all too many scandals, the city set a new policy toward children whose parents could not care for them. Too many bad things had happened at too many group homes, so the city now aims to reunite children with their families or place the little ones in foster homes -- anything but a group home. The city severed ties with the Little Blue House.
Carl Foster works nights at C-SPAN so he can spend days at the rowhouse on Irving Street NW. This is a group home, but one driven to save children rather than profit off their anguish.
A couple of years ago, Foster persuaded his donors to try to pull some families out of the endless cycle in which children are removed from home every time Mom falls back into drug use. The city would pay for the kids' room and board, and Little Blue House would cover the costs for eight mothers to get long-term residential drug treatment, job training, parenting classes, psychological evaluation and whatever else they might need. "Send us the whole family, not just the kids," Foster said.
Judges in Superior Court and some of the city's social workers rave about Little Blue House and its proposal. "It's a very good program that's underutilized," says Lee Satterfield, presiding judge of the D.C. Family Court. "If there's a way to use their services, we should find it."
But the city's Child and Family Services Agency sat on the proposal for months, even after judges and D.C. Council members pressured the agency to respond.
Finally, the city said no. "Young children really do better in family settings," says Brenda Donald Walker, CFSA's director. Little Blue House's "program is good. They're committed and caring. But we are focused on family or kinship care."
When that option doesn't exist, the city puts kids in foster homes, even if there are group homes equipped to provide better care.
Little Blue House supporters argue that it can do more than many foster parents to prepare children and mothers for reunification or adoption. Sorry, Walker says, that's no longer an option: "The long-term relationship is between the mother and her children, and we need to try to help them get well together."
"We agree," says Nancy Hedin, a Blue House board member. "We are offering one-on-one, loving, caring attention that is far beyond what a well-meaning but overwhelmed foster parent can provide. We can't afford to say no to a public-private partnership that is ready to spend money for excellent care. Why is there only one way?"
Foster sees children languishing in city-contracted foster homes for years and mothers finishing short-term drug treatment only to have to do it again a few months later. He is frustrated: "How is a house with six or seven kids and one overworked grandmother considered foster care when Little Blue House, with a staff of 20 for six children, is considered a group home?"
The Little Blue House is home now only to the 4-year-old, whose mother voluntarily placed her child there while Mom finishes a year-long treatment program, and to the baby, whose drug-addicted mother signed her over because she didn't trust the city to do right by her baby. The baby is about to be adopted.
"I could take five new cases tomorrow," Foster says.
Downstairs, the social workers wait. Upstairs, a room full of toys is empty. The money is there. So is the passion. But the city has its rules.
