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“Provincial investment in additional high-quality, licensed, fully funded, therapeutic support homes would better serve this population,” London CAS said in a statement.

Housing kids in hotels, London CAS said, puts them at increased risk of trafficking and doesn’t provide them with a solid foundation for treatment or recovery.

The Star recently told the story of 15-year-old Jade, who spent a year living in hotels and unlicensed group homes after her birth mother brought her to the London CAS office in September 2023 and said she could no longer care for her.

During that time, Jade, who was diagnosed with multiple mental health conditions and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, spiralled further into crisis. She developed a serious drug addiction, overdosed multiple times and was the victim of a violent assault. She died in October 2024 of a fentanyl overdose after a year of living in hotels.

To comply with court ordered publication bans, the Star has used middle names and nicknames for Jade and her family.

Jade’s adoptive mother, Mona, said she was heartbroken to learn London CAS is still housing children in motels.

“It’s horrible that this is what’s happening,” she said. “We can do better.”

Irwin Elman, who served as Ontario’s child and youth advocate from 2008 to 2019, echoed Mona’s calls and said Jade’s story reveals dangerous cracks in the child welfare and youth mental health systems.

“What Jade needed just wasn’t there,” Elman said. “To know that (London CAS) still has to use hotels tells me that little to nothing has been done since she died.”

Eight months after Jade’s death, none of the reviews that are meant to prevent future tragedies have happened. London CAS said it’s prohibited from commenting on individual cases but the agency is committed to participating in investigations that could lead to improvements in child welfare.

While Jade was shuttled between hotels during the last year of her life, the province and CAS leaders sparred over who is ultimately responsible for where some of Ontario’s most vulnerable children are housed. Government officials say that it requires child welfare agencies to ensure placements are safe and can meet a child’s needs. CAS leaders have countered that such placements don’t exist and say the government needs to create more intensive treatment and live-in care services for kids.

Housing kids in hotels, motels, Airbnbs and other unlicensed settings not only leads to harm, but is also driving agencies into deficit, child welfare leaders say. In some cases, the annual cost to house a child in a hotel with round-the-clock supervision nears $1 million.

For at least four years, parents, child advocates and CAS staff have sent warnings to the province but say little has been done to address the placement crisis.

“None of us who work here think that this is OK,” said Gerry Healy, a crisis intervention specialist at London CAS and union representative. “Everybody is sick about it, but we don’t have anything else.”

London CAS has housed children as young as 11 in hotels.

The province needs to treat this like an emergency, Healy said. “The government is wilfully ignoring a crisis. I’m pointing the finger squarely at the ministry. They need to do more.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Michael Parsa, minister of children, community and social services, said the government does not direct children’s aid societies on placement decisions but does require them to ensure placements are safe.

“Societies are responsible, by law, for making placement decisions and providing oversight for the children and youth in their care to ensure they are safe and receiving high-quality services,” said Chris Clarke, adding that the government is working with CAS to ensure high-quality placements are available.

Clarke said the safety and well-being of children is a top priority and the government continuously takes action to improve the child welfare system. This includes a third-party review of the sector currently underway, he said.

The nine kids housed in hotels since Jade’s death all had complex needs and were under 18 years of age, the agency said in a statement.

Hotels were used as longer-term placements for eight kids, while one youth, who had recently come into CAS care, lived in a hotel for less than five days before staff found a more stable option, London CAS said, noting it’s not always possible to use a foster family, which is preferred.

London CAS sources told the Star that limited options have forced them to place children in budget hotels that are known to be the target of sex traffickers. Some youth have been placed in a hotel next door to a massage parlour with neon signs advertising “exotic” and “XXX” services, the sources said.

When hotel placements are the only option, child welfare agencies developed individualized safety plans, London CAS said, which include “the highest level of supervision and support possible to protect them from potential risks, including trafficking.”

During the year Jade was housed in hotels, two support staff stayed in a nearby room to supervise her 24/7, according to documents Jade’s parents shared with the Star. In November, 2023, Jade was also housed in an unlicensed group home, one of two houses London CAS had rented and staffed with contract workers to accommodate the increasing number of high-needs kids coming into care, the documents also show.

Currently, London CAS has three unlicensed homes — each able to house two young people — which provide kids with more stability than hotels, the agency said, noting it’s in the process of licensing these homes with the ministry.

“If space is not available in these homes, then hotels would be used as a last option,” London CAS said. The agency said responsibility for licensing group homes and other live-in placements lies with the government and called on the province to increase investments at the ministry to speed up the process.

In a cruel paradox, the children housed in the hotels are often the ones who require the most care.

The options CAS would typically use for kids in care, such as foster homes, often decline to take in these kids, many of whom struggle with mental health challenges and substance abuse.

Child welfare agencies do not get preferential access to the limited, specialized treatment facilities these kids need, so they join lengthy waitlists. And during that wait, the kids get put in hotels.

Jade received no meaningful treatment for her mental health conditions during her final year in the care of CAS. Her child protection worker spent months trying to get Jade a bed in one of Ontario’s three secure treatment centres for youth only for one to become available three days before she died.

The London CAS called on the province to add more secure treatment spots for youth to reduce waitlists and the time kids spend in crisis before getting help.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a statement that the government has, since 2018, increased funding to children and youth mental health services by over 25 per cent, and is investing an additional $44.6 million annually to expand services for those with complex mental health needs.

“We expect service providers to use these investments to deliver safe, timely, and appropriate care,” Jackson Jacobs said.

On Friday, opposition MPPs called on the Ford government to do more to prevent deaths of vulnerable children in care, saying child welfare agencies have for years sounded the alarm about the placement crisis.

Hotels are not fit for children to call home, said New Democrat MPP Alexa Gilmour (Parkdale-High Park), the shadow minister for women, social and economic opportunity.

“We will continue to lose more children like Jade unless the Ford government does something about it,” Gilmour said.