Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy

With New York shut down by the coronavirus pandemic and vulnerable families under threat like never before, lawmakers approved a state budget late last week gutting support for grandparents, neighbors and other kin caring for children who otherwise might be in foster care.

Five years ago, the leaders of Onondaga County, New York — home to nearly half a million people, the city of Syracuse, and hills, lakes, rivers — saw an opportunity. The number of children placed in foster care had dropped to a little more than 200 from the nearly 900 placed in the system in the late 1990s.