Hayward mayor sues Alameda County to fix troubled foster care assessment center
HAYWARD -- A place that's supposed to be a safe haven for young people in the Alameda County foster care system is being criticized by Hayward's mayor as a dangerous environment where children are vulnerable to sex trafficking and drugs.
Hayward Mayor Mark Salinas says he has been trying for months to get Alameda County to help fix what he describes as very serious issues at the county's assessment center for foster youth.
"Reports of abuse, neglect. We started to get calls for service around assaults and other types of serious calls," said the mayor.
Salinas says the assessment center, which temporarily houses foster youth before they are placed with a foster family, is at an undisclosed location inside Hayward's city limits.
The center is supposed to act as a sort of safe house for children but in recent months, the mayor claims it has become a hotbed for serious criminal activity including sex trafficking.
"There's kids in the center telling girls that if they leave the center and go with their friend, they can go to a better, safer place. And they're coercing into leaving and they're leaving," said Salinas. "And then, as a result, they're getting into cars and they're being taken to other places in the east bay to get prepared for prostitution."
Rebecca Edwards -- the co-founder of Braid Mission, an organization that supports and mentors foster youth -- says incidents like what the mayor is describing are sadly all too common.
"You know people who are pimps and drug dealers, who are recruiting for gangs, know exactly where to find these youth who are vulnerable and who are desperate for somewhere to belong," explained Edwards.
The mayor argues the main issue is that the county is aware of the incidents, but is doing nothing to stop them. He said the Alameda County Sheriff even pulled deputies from the facility last year and replaced them with a private security firm.
"The private security firm, ill-equipped, under prepared and simply not ready. And [they] weren't ready to handle a population of kids that would go to the center with just an array of very serious, complicated lives," said Mayor Salinas.
That's why the mayor says he had no choice but to file a lawsuit against the county, accusing them of failing to perform their mandatory duties.
"This could end soon if they just provided a plan to fix it. There's no plan. We haven't received one plan of action to fixing this," said Mayor Salinas.
KPIX reached out to the county for comment, but did not get a response. The Alameda County Sheriff's office did reply, but pointed to an earlier statement from June of this year where the sheriff stated that the decision to remove deputies from the center came partially as a response to "community-based entities" calling to end law enforcement's involved with the center.
Mayor Salinas says the goal of the lawsuit is to get action from the county. He wants the center to be relocated with a new contractor put in charge and county deputies redeployed to run security.