Here’s Why It Matters To CASA:
- On any given night in Minnesota, thousands of at‑risk youth and children are in emergency or transitional shelter, and
- A very large share of those youth has either past or current CPS/foster‑care involvement or are one step away from it.
Many of these youth are high‑trauma kids who need treatment beds and stable homes, not temporary “parking lots” that deepen their sense of abandonment.
Funding gaps create this crisis, and how it intersects with court delays and GAL workloads. CASA and GAL programs see the fallout every day—but may not have time to connect it to system‑level causes.
CASA/GALs can ask questions about where children are sleeping between hearings and speak to their own case facts and stories during hearings and have conversations with legislators about why children should not be living in hotels and ER hallways.
