When Enedina Rosales (right) applied for foster care benefits to provide for her grandson after his father's arrest, she was denied because Anthony was family. But thanks to legal aid attorneys like Marjorie Shelvy (left), a federal court has ordered $80 million in retroactive benefits to be paid to relative caregivers like her. PHOTOS: Hugh Williams

When Enedina Rosales answered the phone all those years ago, she had no idea that one call was about to turn her entire life upside down. An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department was on the line, informing her that the LAPD had custody of her six-month-old grandson, Anthony. He had been removed from his parents’ house after his father allegedly had abused him. The authorities told her they were trying to locate family members. They found Rosales.

A working grandmother, Rosales lived with her own mother, for whom she cared. She took in Anthony without hesitation. But providing for the young child, who suffered from respiratory problems, forced her to take too much time off work and she lost her job. She applied for federal foster care benefits but was denied, forcing her family of three to live off a small welfare check. They were struggling to scrape by. 

“The federal government had a restrictive interpretation of the Social Security Act that they were using to deny kids in California foster care,” said Yolanda Arias, an attorney with the LSC-funded Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), noting that Rosales’ problem was all too common in California. “When grandparents take in children and are denied foster care, then they have to apply for welfare benefits.”

Although the California Court of Appeals took issue with the restrictive interpretation of federal foster care eligibility in Land v. Anderson (1997), the ruling was ignored by the feds because it was a state decision. “It was their policy to interpret the Social Security Act so as to minimize payments for foster care,” said co-counsel Barbara Jones of LAFLA. 

Rosales came to the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles for help and found three attorneys—Arias, Jones, and Marjorie Shelvy—willing to challenge the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In Los Angeles County alone, there were more than 30,000 children in foster care placements whose relative caretakers could not apply for benefits. The American Association for Retired Persons (AARP) filed an amicus brief to show support for grandparent caregivers like Rosales. 

Rosales and her attorneys joined the state of California in an uphill challenge in federal district court. When U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. of the Eastern District of California sided with HHS, the state abandoned its challenge. Rosales and her legal team did not, however, appealing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

When Rosales (second from left) lost in a federal district court, only her lawyers at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles stood by her. LAFLA attorneys (L to R) Shelvy, Barbara Jones, and Yolanda Arias appealed the trial decision, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it, interpreting the Social Security Act to promote family foster placements.

Last March, the appellate court ruled that the federal agency’s interpretation of the law was “by every measure” unreasonable. It concluded that the denial of benefits ran counter to the intent of the Social Security Act by undermining statutory protections for foster children, stating, “Like those who believed the earth was flat, the [HHS] Secretary cannot continue to adhere to an outmoded interpretation in the face of data to the contrary.” The Court of Appeals determined the HHS was bound to assist caregivers like Rosales who were, up to this point, raising their relatives’ children with little or no help.

The case was sent back to Judge Damrell to rule on the issue of retroactive benefits. Under his ruling, California and its 58 counties are required to pay the state’s relative caregivers an estimated $80 million in retroactive benefits dating back to Dec. 23, 1997, when the state submitted a plan rejected by HHS that made relatives eligible for foster care benefits.

Rochelle Bobroff, an AARP attorney, said the ruling was crucial to giving at-risk children their best chance to succeed in life. “There has been a tremendous increase of kids going into foster care primarily because of problems such as drug abuse,” Bobroff said. “Numerous studies have shown that children who are placed with grandparents do as well or better than those placed with non-relatives. These are children who have been abused and neglected, so they are not your typical healthy five-year-olds. They tend to be kids with special needs.”

Jones, the LAFLA attorney, agreed, saying, “This is a huge victory for the neediest among us. No segment of society needs our help more than these children, most of whom have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by their parents.”

The implications for Rosales v. Thompson will be profound, affecting thousands of California children. However, the resilient plaintiff is simply happy that she will be able to better provide for one of them. “After all, for the past seven years,” Rosales said, “I have been blessed with this perfect child.”