17-Year-Old Dies by Suicide in Oregon Hotel-Child Death

“Oregon officials said a 17-year-old foster child died by suicide Saturday while temporarily staying at a hotel with child-welfare workers who were assigned to supervise the child.

The Oregon Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority released few details about the teen’s death in a news release Monday. The undisclosed details include the city in which the teen died and how the teen was being supervised.

Jake Sunderland, a spokesperson for the human services department, said he couldn’t provide more information, except to say that this is the first time in the department’s history that a child has died while staying at a hotel because they were waiting for “a higher level of care than a general foster home” could provide, such as placement at a residential psychiatric or behavioral health facility.

It’s unclear how long the teen had been staying at the hotel, but the agencies described the lodging as “an emergency stop-gap measure” that’s used until “an appropriate placement can be found.” The agencies said they had been working “for an extended period of time to connect the child with appropriate services and supports.”

The teen’s death comes after a federal judge last year rebuked the state for continuing to house foster children in hotels after promising years ago to stop the practice, according to reporting by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane wrote that the state has said it was diligently working to increase appropriate placements for foster children so they didn’t have to stay in hotels, but “this argument has become nothing more than a stale mantra and the Court has lost faith in ODHS’ ability to end this entrenched policy on its own.”

In the first half of 2023, 75 children lived in hotels, and 20 of them stayed for more than two months.

“Our hearts go out (to) the child’s family, loved ones and community during this incredibly difficult time,” Fariborz Pakseresht, director of the human services department, said in the news release. “Words cannot express the sorrow we feel for this devastating loss.”

Both agencies said they are working to improve children’s access to mental health help.”

“So far this year, DHS has opened CIRT investigations into the deaths of 10 other children in Oregon. They ranged in age between 9 months and 16 years. Brief summaries of their deaths say one died of an overdose, another from a firearm, two because of complications of medical conditions and the rest for reasons that haven’t yet been stated.”

17-year-old foster child dies while housed at Oregon hotel
[Oregon Live 8/7/24 by Aimee Green]

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