Story
Two young foster youths (5 and 6 years of age) have been living with their grandparents since 2020. In December 2023, their biological mother attempted to file a motion to regain custody of these two young children, but the motion was denied by the judge as they deemed that the mother was not fit to care for her children at this time. However, because of this legal motion, the stability in their lives became uprooted as DCFS began to cut down on their KinGAP payments. During the months of the tedious trial and court dates, DCFS began decreasing the amount of KinGAP payments without their knowledge due to the prospective idea that the children would go back to their biological mother. The court has now ordered an investigation to correct the family's KinGAP payments, which could take months. Prior to this incident, KinGAP payments helped out with rent, school expenses, and ABA therapy for one of the granddaughters. However, with the months of missing payments, their family ended up being short on money and the grandmother had to take out a large chunk of her savings to pay for rent and take her of her grandkids. One of her grandchildren is autistic and she must make regular visits to occupational therapy, speech therapy, and so on, while their grandfather is disabled without any support from Social Security. They are late on rent which is due July 1, and their family is extremely terrified of a potential eviction notice which could jeopardize their kinship placement.