It was 49 years today when a groundbreaking investigative
series in the Daily News told a story that had been hidden for a century or
more: Cloaked in a veneer of benevolence, New York’s private foster care
agencies were deliberately prolonging the time children languished in foster
care because their huge, mostly taxpayer-funded budgets were based on payments
for each day they kept the children in their “care.” The series also exposed
horrific abuse in the group homes, institutions and family foster homes run by
these agencies.
The six-day series was called “Big Money, Little Victims.”
All these years later, the little victims are grown up. Some
of them are suing. But instead of begging for forgiveness, the agencies are
begging for a taxpayer bailout …
