The Senate agreed to the title of the bill.
Senator Irwin asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Irwin’s statement is as follows:
I rise to ask for your support of my bill, Senate Bill No. 18. What Senate Bill No. 18 does is it rights a longstanding wrong in our state foster care system. You may remember this bill from last fall. It passed this chamber with great bipartisan support, and I thank my colleagues for that, but here it is again, hoping to get this important issue done.
Here’s what happens today: Today in Michigan, if you’re a foster kid, if you’re a kid in foster care, and you have some sort of income, perhaps from Social Security due to a deceased parent, that income is taken by the state, brought into the state budget, and used for the foster care system. I think that’s wrong. I think the income of these foster care kids is their income and it should be reserved for their needs. Also, we know that when kids in foster care age out of the system, they often hit a cliff. They hit a financial cliff. They often don’t have people in their lives who can help them financially, emotionally, or psychologically with good advice. That’s why so many foster care youths end up in the criminal justice system or end up struggling with housing—end up homeless. We need to remember that these youth in foster care are kids we’ve taken into our care as the state of Michigan. In a certain way, they are our kids, and we owe it to them to treat them with the utmost respect.
That’s why I’ve introduced this legislation to try to restore the income of these kids, make sure they can keep it, make sure DHHS, instead of spending it now, reserves that income so if they need it during their care, or when they age out, they’ve got something to help them attain education, attain housing, get some solid footing, and have a greater chance at success in our great state. I welcome your support of this legislation. I’m hoping we can get it done this year for the youth in foster care in our state.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 29, entitled
A bill to amend 1978 PA 368, entitled “Public health code,” by amending sections 2227, 2617, 2617a, and 2618 (MCL 333.2227, 333.2617, 333.2617a, and 333.2618), section 2227 as added by 2006 PA 653 and section 2617a as added by 2016 PA 479, and by adding section 2617b.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: