Hillsborough County to launch $3 million program to address foster system woes

Roughly 1,435 Hillsborough County children were removed from their parents in 2018, the third straight year the county has led the state in taking abused and neglected children into foster care.

And the county's foster care system has struggled to cope with the constant influx of traumatized kids. Children ended up sleeping on air mattresses in offices and waiting around in gas stations because of a shortage of foster beds. Eckerd Connects, the agency that runs foster care in Hillsborough, was warned by the state last year that it must fix the system or risk losing its $77 million annual contract.

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