Why children are sleeping in a Wake County government office building
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wake County houses foster youth in office spaces due to placement shortages.
- Therapeutic foster care lacks capacity, delaying placement for high-needs youth.
- COVID-19 reduced foster homes and staff at group facilities, straining the system.
On any given night, a half-dozen or more children and teenagers are sleeping in a Wake County government building.
They sleep on air mattresses in converted conference rooms, tucked away from public spaces across multiple floors of Wake County’s Human Services Swinburne building.
There’s one shower. All their meals are brought in because there is no kitchen. Laundry is picked up and brought back.
“They do go on outings to the YMCA, to parks, different things that are always supervised and escorted by social workers,” said Diamond Wimbish, Wake County’s child welfare assistant division director.
“We have Christmas activities and Easter activities and picnics and different things to try to allow for a sense of normalcy,” Wimbish said, adding, “If that word even exists when a child is living in an office building.”
There are usually about six children at the building, but the number peaked at 20 at one time in May.
“The longest youth who stayed with us, she stayed with us for nine months,” Wimbish said. “And she had complex medical needs, along with some behavioral health concerns.”
The children and teenagers are all in the foster care system. Some just need to be evaluated, staying until they can be placed with a foster family. Others have significant needs, complicating where they can go. The average stay at the Wake County office building is eight weeks.
“If it’s out there, I feel like we’ve tried it,” Wimbish said. “We’ve really tried to think out of the box and challenge ourselves to create a solution. But it’s a systems issue. It’s a statewide, nationwide problem.”
Foster Care in Wake County
There are 530 young people, from babies to age 21, in foster care in Wake County.
The number of foster families fluctuates between 88 and 95, not nearly enough to meet the need.
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in the last, probably three months that has caused these numbers to rise,” Wimbish said. “We’re also seeing larger sibling groups come into care. So even if we are removing from one family, we’re finding that we’re removing six kids at a time, seven kids at a time, which causes those numbers to creep up quickly.”
There isn’t one reason for the recent increase, she said, but the county is seeing more parents with untreated mental health and substance use issues.
“And then also youth who have untreated mental health issues that cause parents to feel like they’re unable to safely care for those youth,” Wimbish said.
COVID-19 impact on foster care
Foster kids started sleeping in the county building at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when many foster families stopped taking children.
“For some of our foster parents, it was scary to agree to bring in a youth into their home and not know what they may be coming with,” Wimbish said.
At the same time, group homes and residential treatment facilities saw staff leaving and some facilities closing.
“It feels like it’s in line with just a general trend of people leaving the helping profession, and being available to help,” Wimbish said.
While Wake County needs more foster families, that isn’t the immediate fix for those at the Swinburne building.
“These are young people who need more enhanced levels of care,” Wimbish said. “And I really don’t know [the solution]. If I did, I probably would have really pushed to have it.”
Higher level of care
A child in foster care may have one or more physical, mental, behavioral or medical needs. In those cases, a child can’t always be placed with a foster family.
Instead, they may need a therapeutic foster family, which means a child needs behavioral health services and support in a family setting. These homes are not licensed by Wake County, but by a private child placing agency.
Some children have even greater needs and require a group home or psychiatric residential treatment facility.
“This distinction exists because therapeutic foster care requires specialized oversight and clinical expertise that DSS agencies are not structured to provide,” said Summer Tonizzo, press assistant for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
Therapeutic foster families must meet all the training of foster families plus 10 hours of training specific to their role, including “safety planning and managing challenging behaviors,” she said.
“These children may exhibit emotional dysregulation, attachment issues and behavioral outbursts, leading to placement instability as they adjust to new settings,” Tonizzo said. “The intensity of care often results in foster parent burnout or compassion fatigue stemming from navigating fragmented systems such as the mental health system, educational and medical, which can all be challenging.”
Wake County tries to place children with these private agencies but get denied because there isn’t room or they are not a “good fit” for the current children in the agency’s care. Agencies can be selective due to high demand.
“Because there is such a need across the state and in the nation, if you are a provider, and you have a choice between a kid who looks a little bit easier to manage on paper versus a child who has some extensive behaviors on paper, providers have a choice of which youth they accept to fill their beds,” Wimbish said.
A temporary safety net
It costs $1.8 million to pay for salaries, security, food, clothing and supplies to care for the children.
The county hasn’t bought a hotel floor for the children because some have intellectual developmental delays, need adult diapers or have other hygiene issues. Staff also needs to be able to see the children at all times, and has called law enforcement or EMS when a child’s experienced a mental health crisis.
To help control access to the children, staff also has separated those from rival gangs or who start forming a relationship across multiple floors.
“We’ve had a lot of different children come through the building ... children who are involved with the department of juvenile justice, who have significant physical aggression and verbal aggression, children who have sexually offended on either other children or even other adults,” Wimbish said. “We’ve had children with significant substance use issues, particularly from two children who have fentanyl addiction in our building.”
The county has considered starting a group home, but the licensing was too difficult to meet all the children’s needs.
County officials declined to let The News & Observer see where the children and teenagers stay at the county building or to confirm or deny the medical conditions of any of the foster youth, including if any were pregnant.
“Youth awaiting placement in the building receive continuous 24/7 supervision and support targeted to meet their needs,” said Kathy Del Hoyo, communications consultant for Wake County. “The Swinburne Building is used as a temporary safety net, and the goal is to place youth in our care in appropriate and safe settings as soon as possible.”
Wake County Commissioner Vickie Adamson often participates in events with the children and teenagers living at the building, including holiday events.
“It’s a big system problem,” she said. “It’s not just a Wake County problem. If it was just a Wake County problem, we’d have fixed it.”
NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com.
This story was originally published August 6, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
