Taxpayers paid millions for migrant kids' shelters that never opened, investigation finds
Posted December 10, 2020 7:00 a.m. EST
New Horizon's facility in Lumber Bridge
By Tyler Dukes, News & Observer reporter
Raleigh, N.C. — A bipartisan U.S. Senate committee this week concluded that the federal government’s failed oversight of a program to shelter unaccompanied migrant children cost taxpayers $32 million for several planned facilities that will never open, including one in North Carolina.
The report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was released Tuesday after a year-long probe focusing on two companies, VisionQuest National and New Horizon Group Home. Both firms received multimillion-dollar grants from the federal Department of Health and Human Services to house children swept up by immigration officials while traveling alone or separated from their families.
But the Senate report found HHS officials were unaware of either company’s troubled history running facilities with substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect – issues that jeopardized their ability to open shelters at all.
https://www.wral.com/taxpayers-paid-millions-for-migrant-kids-shelters-that-never-opened-investigation-finds/19422252/
