Her entrance caused a stir. A 15-year-old girl with appraising eyes and a gruff, resonant voice, she radiated bridled ambition in a room filled with children who were mostly slumped and lost.
She was dressed as if heading to a party, the red of her cropped jacket a pop of bright color against the black and white geometry of her dress. But the bandages on her arms told a different story.
A social worker and two guards drew close for the daily inspection as she crouched to the floor to unload a bag holding her only belongings: deodorant, a package of Cup Noodles, hand cream, underwear, a brush and nail polish.
"That's contraband. You can't have the nail polish," said the social worker, a clipboard pulled tightly to her chest. She was enforcing a policy aimed to prevent foster youths from using a shard of glass to harm themselves or others.
Ashley had returned for the third straight night to the foster care system's Youth Welcome Center, an old dining hall on the campus of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
The center ā outfitted with couches and televisions ā was designed as a comfortable waiting room for children newly removed from their families; it was intended to house them for just one night while the staff tried to place them with a foster home.
Instead, the center has evolved into a holding facility for the most difficult to place youths who have been thrown out of foster homes. No one is turned away.
[For more of this story, written by Garrett Therolf, go to http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-foster-overflow-20150301-story.html#page=1]
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