The day the shelter closed in North Platte, Nebraska

Richard Wexler

Thursday, February 24, 2011
The day the shelter closed in North Platte, Nebraska

I’ve written before about the seductive appeal of “shelters,” those first-stop parking places for children torn from their parents. Shelters do the children great harm while turning them into human teddy bears for the benefit of the staff and volunteers.

One of the many reasons they are so hard to close is the way shelter operators stoke the fears of timorous child welfare agency leaders by claiming that there simply is no alternative, and if they close there will be no place for the children. So the bureaucrats decide they can’t possibly close the shelters until every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed on a grand plan to replace them. That’s what is playing out right now in Rhode Island.

But when you do that, the shelters never close. Because as long as there’s an easy dumping ground, child welfare agencies will use it. FULL STORY