A new investigative series examines how roughly three million U.S. children live with grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and other relatives—often after a family crisis—while many of those kinship caregivers face gaps in housing, legal standing and financia
When Denise Chathams first brought her niece and nephew into the home she’d lived in for 15 years. it wasn’t part of a long-term plan. Her budget couldn’t stretch far enough once Imagine. 5. and Janiah. 12. joined her life—along with the sudden reality that the children’s mother could no longer care for them and had given up legal custody.
By the time the strain fully took hold, the trouble paying bills became something larger and harsher: bankruptcy and foreclosure. After 18 years, Denise lost her house.
The story is one of many in a yearlong investigation into kinship care. a system that often applauds relatives for stepping up—yet leaves many families without the resources that make stability possible. On Tuesday. May 26. 2026. in an episode of The Excerpt podcast. investigative reporter Jayme Fraser discussed her three-part series. “Caring for Kin. ” with host Dana Taylor.
Fraser’s reporting centers on a basic fact: millions of children are being raised by relatives. often after trauma strikes families at exactly the wrong moment. She said that on any given day there are about three million kids in the U.S. living with relatives instead of their parents, including about 130,000 kids in government foster care. Those numbers add up to about one in 20 kids. In some Black and Indigenous communities. she said it can be as many as one in four children raised by a relative for at least part of their childhood.
What drives that placement, Fraser explained, is often crisis—parental death, incarceration, the loss of housing, addiction, or other circumstances that prevent parents from caring for their children.
The shift toward placing children with relatives has grown over time. according to Fraser’s account of how child welfare policy evolved. She pointed to a 1996 federal rule requiring states and child welfare agencies to prioritize keeping children within their family when they can. She also described the older history of American child welfare. moving from informal orphanages to a federalized program built around institutions. then to an emphasis on foster families in home-like settings.
Within kinship care. Fraser described two common paths: most kinship families form on their own without government intervention. while a smaller number are formed through foster care. In the foster-care route, she said, a report of abuse or neglect triggers an investigation of the household. Sometimes caseworkers ask relatives to take in children during the investigation before any legal case is filed. Once a legal case is filed, the state takes custody of the kids.
Even when children end up with family, Fraser said the bottom line is often the same—relatives frequently agree to take on children on very short notice, without it being part of their long-term life plan.
Hidden foster care turns help into a statistical illusion
Fraser used the phrase “hidden foster care” to describe a major concern in how cases are handled. She said there are worries that some child welfare programs place children with relatives and then close the case. On paper, that can look like success: fewer children are going into foster care and leaving foster care sooner.
But the promise can collapse if children move in with family before they learn about guardianship or adoption benefits and potential long-term financial subsidies—benefits Fraser said are tied to training on how to support kids who have experienced trauma. She said the issue can even surface at the investigation stage. Investigators. she said. may suggest that if the child goes to grandma. the investigation can be dropped. and then they leave.
The consequence, Fraser said, is that there’s no guarantee the relative has legal custody. The parents who were behind the initial abuse or neglect call could return and take the children back at any time. In that situation. Fraser said. there are no financial. educational. or material supports to ensure the new family—or reunification with the parents—goes smoothly. The result. she said. is that the system can record fewer children in foster care even while children’s needs remain untracked.
When relatives keep kids, outcomes can be better—yet support lags behind
Fraser pointed to research suggesting children fare better when they stay with family than when they’re placed with non-relatives or in group settings. She tied those outcomes to the fact that family structure remains intact. including the support needed to navigate challenges and transition into adulthood—something she said doesn’t exist in a stranger foster home.
But the investigation’s central tension isn’t whether kinship care can work. It’s what happens after caregivers agree to take children in.
Housing shows up again and again in Fraser’s reporting, and Denise Chathams’ family is a direct example. After the foreclosure, Denise and Imagine shared a bedroom in a family friend’s home. Mary and Janiah went to a relative’s home, living apart for two years until Denise applied to Vermillion Place.
Fraser described Vermillion Place as an affordable housing project prioritizing kinship families, with an emphasis on the unique challenges of finding homes that are both affordable and accessible.
Legal standing can be another barrier—especially when courts decide a child’s fate
Beyond housing, Fraser said relatives can be shut out of court decisions about children, even when they are caring for them every day.
She described how family court and child law historically developed from British property law, in which women and children were treated as property of their husbands. She said decisions were therefore often made in probate courts, which handle estates and other matters.
But in modern practice. Fraser said. relatives often don’t have standing in the courts making decisions about their families because there is no legal precedent and no state laws granting a blanket right to participate. She said parents have clear rights under Supreme Court decisions unless it’s proven unsafe for them to raise their children. She added that Fraser found there are no rulings establishing broad rights for grandparents or aunts to be involved.
So relatives must petition an individual judge and argue for standing—something Fraser said is expensive and not commonly granted. In child welfare cases. she said. parents have a right to be involved. the state is arguing whether it’s safe for the children to return home. and there is a representative for the children. If grandma or an aunt wants to be in the courtroom. Fraser said. they must personally pay for an attorney and that attorney has to successfully ask to be there.
A system that saves money hasn’t rerouted it to caregivers
For taxpayers, keeping children out of foster care can mean savings. Fraser said one nonprofit group estimates taxpayers save more than $10 billion every year by having kids raised by relatives rather than paying stranger foster parents.
But Fraser said that money does not reach kinship families consistently. She pointed to how only some states have taken advantage of rules allowing them to write licensing standards for kinship families. and she said some states pay lower rates. In Texas. Fraser said she met a woman who. after finally getting licensed as a kinship foster home. was paid half as much as strangers for the same care because of the number set by the state legislature.
She also pointed to debate at the federal level about whether families should be paid at all. citing changes being considered to Medicaid for disability caregiving. Fraser said health officials have questioned why relatives should be paid to take care of someone at home. and said similar logic can flow into child welfare.
Fraser’s reporting also returned to how support varies with policy eras. She said some of these families received better support under the older cash benefits safety net program.
What’s emerging—and where the gaps still are
Fraser described policy ideas gaining traction, including kinship navigator programs. She described them as a kind of call-in resource where caregivers can get help immediately—for example. needing a toddler bed. or figuring out how to get assistance buying groceries. Fraser said kinship navigator programs exist in about 30 states, while other states do not have them.
She said the services vary from state to state, but that the growing recognition is that these families exist in large numbers and have unique challenges that require adjustments in existing community programs.
By the end of the episode, the picture that remained was not simply one of broken systems. It was of a country that has built a place for relatives in theory—then too often failed to build the support structure that makes that promise real.
At the time of the conversation on May 26, 2026, the central question was clear: how do we keep praising kinship caregivers while finally delivering the housing, legal access, and financial help that can prevent stability from slipping into foreclosure, separation, and court barriers?
kinship care grandparents raising children foster care hidden foster care housing affordability legal standing child welfare policy Medicaid caregiving kinship navigator programs U.S. economy households