Statewide Iowa — Parts of western Iowa are facing an acute shortage of emergency youth shelters for children in foster care.
In the last year, three of the region’s four shelters closed due to staffing shortages caused by COVID-19. The Crittenton Shelter in Sioux City just reopened after being shut down for more than six months and its executive director Kim Scorza says it was a tough time.
Within the first week of opening, the shelter was already housing six children. The pandemic is also creating a critical need for more foster families to take in children. Dawn Leutje, of Lutheran Iowa Services, says the number of children in foster care has continued to climb, but the number of homes available didn’t keep pace.
There are 342 foster families in the 30 counties across western Iowa, but Leutje says that number isn’t filling the high number of referrals. She says many people became unable to host kids amid the uncertainty of the pandemic.
