Five children under the age of 16 were taken from kinship care arrangements and placed in a co-ed adult wellness lodge for several days before being moved to two different Winnipeg hotels where they were left for two weeks, according to frustrated relatives.
It allegedly happened at the end of March. Family members say a 15-year-old was left in charge of her siblings, age 10, seven and six, in a west Winnipeg hotel for a week then moved to a Transcona-area hotel for another week.
A 13-year-old ran away from the hotel and was missing, Winnipeg police confirm. He was found safe on April 17 and is reportedly now living with a family member.
Photos obtained by Global News appear to show the other children in a hotel with TV dinners, Slurpees and lice-removal kits.
Global News emailed the allegations to Southeast Child and Family Services executive director Rhonda Kelly on April 16 to confirm or refute details provided by the family and requested an interview. There was no response.
Global News spoke with two of the children’s relatives who cannot be identified under the Child and Family Services Act.
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One of them says the three youngest are now together in foster care while the now-16-year old is back in the kinship care she was taken from.
The relative says they’ve not been told why the children were removed after six years of caring for the children or if they’ll be returned.
Both family members say they’ve called and emailed Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine to intervene.
“I want to know what she’s doing … to protect our children,” one says. “What is she doing so these workers aren’t given so much power over everyone else. I want answers as to why children are placed in these kinds of environments.”
Fontaine told Global News that hotel placements “do not occur” but there are exceptions where hotels stays are permitted.
“I’m not able as Minister of Families to comment on any particular files,” the minister said. “What I will state… is the CFS standards are clear there are no hotel placements and any hotel stays for a wide range of issues are for the shortest duration of time.”
Placing children in hotels was banned by the previous NDP government in 2015 after it was revealed child welfare agencies were placing at-risk kids in hotels, often unsupervised, where many were exploited or became victims or perpetrators of crime.
By 2017, the Progressive Conservative government stopped tracking if hotels were being used to house children but the policy against that remains in place.
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