DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Back during the height of Michigan’s gubernatorial election, Michigan News Source reported an exclusive on a Black adoption agency called “Homes for Black Children” (HBC) that was at risk of being shut down by the Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Division.

The state of Michigan had planned to revoke the adoption agency’s licensing on October 28th over “financial instability.”

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HBC was founded in 1969 by the United Way of Southeastern Michigan following the 1967 riots to reduce the large number of black children who were languishing in foster care. The agency doesn’t provide residential congregate care for the children. Instead, they find foster homes and adoptive homes for children.

Because of financial struggles due to the pandemic and other issues, HBC was having a rough time making ends meet but President and CEO Jacquelynn Moffett told us that even though they had a net profit of $70,000 in 2021, the state was still planning to shut them down.

Initially, Bob Wheaton, Public Information Officer of the Michigan Dept. of Health & Human Services, had said “MDHHS’s top priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of children in care. Significant financial instability at this agency over the last four years threatens its ability to manage the cases of vulnerable children…MDHHS action, while difficult, is necessary for the good of children in care.”

After we reported on the situation with HBC, other media outlets also picked up the story. After more of the public became informed of what was going on, Wheaton told The Detroit News, “We are working alongside the leadership at Homes for Black Children to further review the agency’s operations and explore opportunities to help them meet state compliance standards.”

Because of the media spotlight on the situation, the license revocation process had been put on hold until a scheduled meeting on November 9th – one day after the election.

Moffett has been working with the state diligently since that time in an ongoing effort to keep the adoption agency going.

Michigan News Source reached out to Moffett to get an update on her licensing. She said, “We’re still working at it. They (state) did decide not to revoke our license. They gave us a provisional license and they are monitoring our financial instability. The question that they primarily have is that our liabilities exceed our assets.”

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She went on to say, “We had to submit a corrective action plan of certain things we agreed to do in that plan and they monitor you for six months to make certain that you are following what you said you are going to do in that plan.”

Some things she mentioned that are part of the plan include putting together a repayment plan with the IRS, a change in auditors and changes in governance.

Moffet said, “One of the things that helped them (state) to change their mind is that we had an outside opinion from a CPA other than our auditor come in and look over our financials and demonstrate that there wasn’t anything ‘shady’ going on. Rather that it was just a lack of revenue. So that person has agreed to chair a new finance committee and will be communicating with our Board of Directors in terms of the new auditor, reviewing financials and that kind of thing.”

She also discussed the need to diversity the funding of the agency instead of solely relying on the state of Michigan to keep them afloat. She said, “We’re trying to put together a fundraising committee to chip away at this because they’re not going to go away (state)… So there is a group of social workers…They’re not representing the Association of Black Social Workers but many of them belong to that organization – they have agreed to develop a sub-committee to the finance committee to do fundraising for the agency.”

Moffett also said that the agency lost their referrals for about five months while the license was in question. She said, “Our biggest struggle is finances and between when the state first raised the question from September of last year until February, we weren’t getting any referrals. So a lot of the strides that we had met financially, they were just erased. As soon as we were in a position to accept additional referrals, that got absorbed really quickly. We’re approximately $125K less than what we would have been had we been receiving funding during that time.”

Now with referrals coming back, things are headed in the right direction and the agency needs to hire more workers to fill the need. She said, “We have had so many many referrals. We are turning down referrals because we just don’t have the social worker capacity right now. So the need is there. There is a great need.”

Moffett said, “We’re just trying to get back up on our feet again…Once the state decided that they were not going to revoke the license, they started referring kids again. I think that was based on the fact that the attorney and the consultant made a pretty strong argument that we’ve never had any weakness in terms of service to kids and in terms of maltreatment to kids. It’s just a funding issue.”

Moffett said the lack of adequate adoption funding for adoption contracts is a big problem that exacerbated their financial issues. She said, “We have a child placement license which includes foster home licensing and adoptions. The adoption program is part of how we have got into financial problems because it’s so inadequately funded.” She also pointed out “Catholic Social Services used to be the largest provider of adoption services here in Wayne County. They eventually went out of business because it’s not cost-effective. So many agencies don’t want to it because they lose money on it.”

Moffet also said that a lot of the things that they were doing for free in the past, they are unable to do any longer – that includes support services that they had provided to families. Without a funding source, those things had to be removed from the program.

Moffett expressed sincere gratitude and thanks to Michigan News Source for writing about the possible shutdown of the agency. She said, “I think your article single-handedly saved the agency, I really believe that. That’s when the ball got rolling. It got the governor’s attention and along with my daughter who started the on-line campaign on Twitter, between the two of you guys, you all did it so I appreciate it so much.”

She also said that she wanted to thank the readers for their support to keep the organization open. She described it as a “community effort” and said, “They (supporters) actually shut down the governor’s email. It got flooded. We are so appreciative about their concern about the agency and taking action to stop it from happening…there was so much support.”

Moffett said she believes one of the reasons her agency has been able to sustain the fight against the state of Michigan to date is because of their position in the community. She said, “Black children are still overly represented in the child welfare system. They stay twice as long. Their families receive fewer services. Our unique ability is that because we are community-based and we are identified with the community, we have a trust factor.”

Moffett concluded the interview by marveling at the fact that Homes for Black Children is still around after going up against the state of Michigan. She said, “We’re still here. We just need a level of independence. Without that, you’re just at the mercy of the bureaucracy. It’s kind of incredible that this little bitty agency sustained itself against the bureaucracy of the state of Michigan. Our attorney, he said that in his experience, that he’s never seen that happen.”

Michigan News Source reached out to Bob Wheaton for an updated statement about the licensing of the agency but he did not return our request for comment.