Northern California tribe and Humboldt County settle lawsuit over extended foster care

Nancy Marie Spears
The Imprint

After a two-year legal battle, the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria and one of its tribal citizens, former foster youth Madison Fisher, have settled a lawsuit with state and county officials that will improve young adults’ access to financial help and housing.

The 2023 claim against Humboldt County and the state’s Department of Social Services accused officials of unfairly denying Native American youth aged 18 to 21 their extended foster care benefits. The denials were based on eligibility calculations that disqualified those receiving “tribal distributions.” Receipt of these payments — typically awarded to tribal members from casino revenue or payouts over violations of Native land and water rights — have counted against youth entitled to extended foster care benefits.

Fisher faced homelessness after being stripped of her county-arranged housing just months after she moved in — an experience causing her to relapse into substance use and attempt suicide, court filings state. Her lawsuit alleged that former foster youth like her have been “denied years of monetary and in-kind benefits they were legally entitled to, which has resulted in the loss of access to housing, education, and medical treatment.”

According to a dismissal agreement filed Nov. 7 in the Northern California U.S. District Court, Fisher has been awarded $45,000 in compensation for the extended foster care benefits she was previously denied. 

What’s more, Humboldt County and the state have responded to her lawsuit by announcing new policies and pledging such harm won’t happen again. The co-counsel confirmed the two net results of this settlement are the financial compensation for the youth and statewide policy changes. A forthcoming letter to all counties in the state notifying them of the changes has not yet been made public.

Going forward, the county’s Department of Health and Human Services now states, Native foster youth “will not be asked to choose between accepting income to which they are rightfully entitled, such as tribal distributions, or accepting a housing benefit designed to help them achieve independent living and prevent homelessness.”

The new guidance also states that tribal youth will not have to have their eligibility redetermined in order to receive these lifeline services.

Kimberly Cluff, legal director for the lawsuit’s co-counsel, California Tribal Families Coalition, lauded the outcome.

​​“A lot of times when you’re settling stuff like this, it’s contingent on nobody having to admit they did anything wrong, and here we got them to publicly admit that they did wrong,” Cluff said. “And for me, that’s powerful.”

A spokesperson for the California Department of Social Services said the agency has no comment. 

In an emailed statement, a representative of Humboldt County’s Department of Health and Human Services said the department will continue striving to make the improvements stipulated in the settlement. 

“Humboldt County [Department of Health and Human Services] honors the sovereignty of Tribal members in our community and will continue our ongoing commitment to upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act, improving our practice and taking proactive steps to support the wellness and sovereignty of Tribal people and communities,” the email stated. “We appreciate the ongoing collaborations with local Tribes and will continue focusing on partnering with humility and deference to Tribal expertise and leadership.”

In court filings, the county states that once it “learned of the violation of federal law” — and prior to the state issuing its new guidance — local officials “proactively” and “immediately” sought to identify “negatively impacted youth and to quickly restore benefits to these foster youth that had been terminated.” 

To that end, county officials state that they “worked collaboratively” with Bear River’s social services director and the tribal coalition to identify “at least two, and possibly three, cases of Bear River Tribal youth whose benefits had been terminated due to eligibility redeterminations.” 

The county described the “harms these youth experienced, including losing their housing,” as directly conflicting with the agency’s mission.

Not all sovereign nations provide citizens “tribal distributions,” which are often varying amounts of lump-sum payments. And not all Indigenous youth receive such money. The ones that do may have to meet other requirements stipulated by their tribes, like completing high school or college. Because of that, the state acknowledged the need to determine extended foster care eligibility for youth receiving tribal reimbursements on a case-by-case basis.

“It is important to note that depending on the tribe, funds may actually not be available to the Indian youth,” the guidance reads. “In such cases, funds should not be included as a resource.”

While state and tribal agencies identified two to three wrongful denials of extended foster care benefits, Cluff — who worked on Fisher’s case with pro bono assistance from the private law firm Jenner & Block — said the total number is still not known. 

She said some may have been told outright not to apply. Others, like Fisher, may have been accepted for benefits and later kicked off the extended foster care program. The impacts of those rejections could be wide-ranging, Cluff added: Those affected might be in their 20s or 30s today, and may have become impoverished, struggled to stay in school or experienced housing insecurity. 

n the future, such youth will be better served, Cluff said.

“This tribe and this youth stood up for all tribes and all youth in the system, and is holding a county and state accountable for the violation of their rights,” she said. “This will be an excellent tool going forward when we see other violations of tribal youth rights, which, unfortunately, happens all too often.”