MONTICELLO - Department of Family Services Deputy Commissioner William Moon said foster care in Sullivan County continues to be an issue with rising numbers of children in the county's care. He addressed the county legislators at the Health and Family Services committee meeting in the government center on Thursday.

Moon stated that more children are entering the system and there aren't enough families to support them. “That's going to be a year-long challenge,” he said. “If you have friends or relatives, or if you have an interest yourself, please let us know.”

He continued that it is a very serious issue. Recently the department had a sibling group of eight children. They were taken from their parents because of the opioid crisis. “These are issues that we just don't have enough workaround to be able to deal with,” Moon said.

Another issue in the department that's hitting the county is the homeless population. Moon said there over 100 homeless people in the county right now.

The amount of homeless housing days that they paid for has increased dramatically over last year. Moon said he files a report annually with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In the fiscal year 2016 it was just under 16,000 homeless housing days; in 2017 it was just under 18,00; and now it is just under 23,000. This represents a 30 percent increase over last year. “I actually was shocked,” Moon stated. “This is a serious challenge for us.”

He said in the past they were spending almost 2 million dollars, but now they got it down to a manageable level, under half a million. “It requires some out of the box thinking in order to address this issue,” Moon said. “It's growing statewide. New York City has over 70,000 people homeless every night.”

The legislators agreed it was a serious issue. “We need to sit down as a group and further this discussion,” Legislator and Chair of the committee Nadia Rajsz said. “We can't fix it overnight, but we can address it.”

Moon said, “There are some other things that we can do.”

One of those things, said Family Services Commissioner Joseph Todora, is a plan for long-term housing. He mentioned that in Maryland a large apartment complex must have ten percent for disabled housing.

New animal shelter in Liberty

Town of Liberty Dog Control Officer Joanne Gerow implored the legislators to support a new animal shelter in Liberty. She said the shelter is still in the beginning stages but will hopefully open in mid-December.

The shelter can house 26 dogs as well as other animals, and has a veterinary clinic. Gerow said they offer “an array of different services that we want to be able to provide for the county.” Some of these include community service opportunities for students and people who need to complete community service, a low-cost spay and neuter clinic and reduced-fee basic animal care. “This is a phenomenal opportunity for the county,” Gerow said.

Other towns can utilize the shelter. Currently some towns, such as Lumberland and Mamakating, have a contract with the Deerpark animal shelter. This costs extra money to send animals out of county. With this new shelter in Liberty, animals can stay in county, thus reducing the cost.

Gerow said she currently runs the animal control office by herself. The new shelter, however, will require staffing. “I'm like a one-man band and it can't stay like that,” she told the legislators.

There needs to be a “catch net” in place in case she is unable to run the shelter. “How we treat our animals is indicative of us as a society, our standards, our morals,” Gerow said.

The legislators asked how much money she was asking for to run the shelter. Gerow said she wasn't sure and that they don't have a budget yet. The legislators said it is something they would like to support, and to come back once the shelter has a budget.

Forensic crime labs overrun with cases

How can an attorney prosecute a case if they don't have access to the evidence? That is a problem that's currently happening in District Attorney Jim Farrell's office. As he addressed the legislators during the Public Safety Committee, Farrell said the crime labs that they use are inundated with work.

“They are completely overrun with cases,” Farrell said. “They don't have the staffing to analyze the evidence and we are getting extensive back logs, and we are getting into a situation where we may not have evidence analyzed for trials.”

Farrell said the New York State Police Crime Lab services the county for all drug and forensic analysis.

“It's another unfunded state mandate,” Farrell said of the reason for why the labs are backlogged. “A service that they ordinarily provided is now going to be taken away and counties and municipalities are going to have to deal with it on their own.”

Farrell said a number of counties in the state have their own crime labs, and they can partner with those counties to solve this issue. “We are talking about heroin and fentanyl killing people, an epidemic, and now we have issues with getting the drugs analyzed,” Farrell said. “That is unacceptable.”

Undersheriff Eric Chaboty echoed Farrell's concerns. He sited a case in 2010 where the sheriff's office sent out blood to be analyzed and it came back to a DNA match to a man in New York City and they arrested him. In a case very recently, they recovered blood from a burglary scene, but the lab said they wouldn't analyze it.