D.C. Social Workers Remove More Kids

That is a sore spot for the agency, because reuniting children with their families is one of the main ways that foster homes stay available for incoming children.

The foster care system is at capacity with about 2,240 children, Bobo said. But she said she is proud that not once during the surge has a child had to spend the night in the agency's offices, something that was commonplace a decade ago.

While the agency works to recruit more foster families in a city where foster care is not a natural fit for the changing demographics, it also is looking for creative solutions. There is a program that gives impoverished grandparents a subsidy for taking their abused grandchildren into their homes and another that makes it easy for children to stay with relatives across state lines. Workers are trying to recruit the wave of singles buying condos in the city and empty nesters who miss having children in their lives.

A recent recruit is Dora Thomas, an empty nester and federal worker who has had her home filled with foster children -- often two at a time -- for the past two years.

"If only we could clone Dora," agency spokeswoman Mindy Good said.

Sometimes, Thomas said, the turnover in children was so fast that she barely had the chance to change the sheets in her spare room before the next child came in.

Most foster parents love taking in babies, leaving the District's disproportionate majority of teens in the cold. But not Thomas. She said she favors the opportunity to give teens a safe haven.

She grew close to a girl who came with stitches on her head and a broken arm, and she fell head over heels for the two brothers who taught her some Spanish. She maintains the same phone number, in case her foster kids decide to get back in touch. Some do.

Most of her placements come about midnight, children who didn't even have suitcases for their clothes and arrive at a stranger's home with their possessions in a grocery bag.

"There was one little girl who asked me, 'Do I sleep on this couch?' " Thomas said. "She couldn't imagine that someone had a bed ready, just for her."