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House Oversight Presses MDHHS on Child‑Welfare Decisions after Homelessness and Deaths
Summary
Lawmakers pressed Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel over multiple child‑welfare cases — including two young siblings found living in a tent and later a car — and questioned department policies, auditing gaps and capacity at child‑caring institutions.
Representative Regas opened the hearing by asking Elizabeth Hertel, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, about two children, Daisy and Donald Arthur, ages 6 and 5, who were found living in a tent in Bedford Township in late 2023 and later found living in a car in April 2025.
Hertel said Children’s Protective Services (CPS) operates under the state child protection law and that CPS “does not substantiate” when an investigation does not meet the legal threshold for child abuse or neglect. She described efforts to expand prevention services, including embedding family resource specialists (FRS) — eligibility specialists who accompany CPS workers to offer housing, food and employment referrals — in some counties. “We want to be able to bring somebody with us who then can try to meet the needs of that family,” Hertel said.
Lawmakers pressed Hertel over whether the department’s response adequately protected the Arthur children. Representative Regas repeatedly asked Hertel to answer whether the living conditions shown in committee photos were acceptable; Hertel declined to answer a personal yes‑or‑no, saying her role is to “implement the law, not make choices for other parents.” Hertel said she was familiar with Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodenough’s account of the family and that, in April 2025, the children were removed from the home.
Multiple representatives said the events showed failures of system capacity and follow‑through. Representative Brock, who represents Monroe County, asked whether foster‑care licensing standards would have led CPS to intervene earlier; Hertel replied that foster licensing has different standards and that an unlicensed household would not be a foster family. Representatives also asked whether employees had been disciplined in the Arthur case; Hertel said confidentiality limits what she can disclose about specific child‑welfare files but said the family had been referred to resources and at times received shelter assistance.
Committee members connected the Arthur case to broader system reviews and audits. Hertel described the department’s “safe systems review” process — a sampling review of child deaths tied to child‑welfare cases intended to determine whether policies were followed — and said the Auditor General identified 150 deaths that were matched to the department’s master person index but were not open child‑welfare cases and therefore were not included in the safe systems sample. Hertel said the discrepancy led the department to clarify policy on which deaths are included in that review.
Members also raised placement capacity and child‑caring institutions (CCIs). Hertel said placements can be complex — some children require inpatient psychiatric care or stabilization before a residential bed is appropriate — and that the department maintains a waiting list and is working to expand capacity. Lawmakers quoted the department’s website saying 61 children were listed as “awaiting placement without an identified CCI.” Hertel said some children do not appear on a CCI waiting list because they require other services first, but she acknowledged placements and residential capacity remain an ongoing problem.
On remedies, Hertel said the department is expanding FRS prevention services county by county and tracking data through its case management system. She told the committee the department shares data with federal courts (noting the state is under a consent decree) and that it can produce case‑level tracking and aggregate metrics where allowed by confidentiality rules.
The committee did not take formal action. Members said they will request documentation and follow up on audits, placement wait‑lists and the department’s rollout schedule for embedded family resource specialists.
Ending: The oversight committee signaled continued scrutiny. Members asked Hertel for case documentation where confidentiality permits, for updates on the statewide expansion of prevention workers, and for clearer reporting on placement capacity and the auditor general’s findings.
