TUESDAY September 8, 2020: BROKEN HOME: Foster Kid Hell by ZUMA Press Newspaper Sacramento Bee Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Renée C. Byer, who worked together with reporters Michael Finch II and Molly Sullivan on this special investigation. A mom lost her daughter and wants answers. A picture essay about runaways, prostitution and a girl's death, and how Sacramento's largest group home failed its kids. Children's Receiving Home is one of Sacramento's most important institutions. Welcome to: BROKEN HOME: Foster Kid Hell
© zReportage.com Story of the Week #752: TUESDAY September 8, 2020: BROKEN HOME: Foster Kid Hell by ZUMA Press Newspaper Sacramento Bee Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Renée C. Byer, who worked together with reporters Michael Finch II and Molly Sullivan on this special investigation. A mom lost her daughter and wants answers. A picture essay about runaways, prostitution and a girl's death, and how Sacramento's largest group home failed its kids. Children's Receiving Home is one of Sacramento's most important institutions. Welcome to: BROKEN HOME: Foster Kid Hell

Memorial to Kendra Czekaj, 12, who died after chasing a resident who had run away from the CPSU (Child Placement Support Unit) on campus. Melted candles and pictures of Kendra, remain from a vigil held for her across the street from the Children's Receiving Home in Sacramento. Kendra's father Carewin Czekaj will serve 14 years in prison for the multiple charges of rape and sexual abuse against her from 2016-2019. The struggling teen had been placed in the CRH for safety.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

Six lanes of Capital City Freeway traffic run under the Watt Avenue overpass near the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento. Kendra Czekaj, 12, was struck by a car and killed when she tried to join other AWOL teens in the median on January 15th. Mourners at her funeral were shocked. What was supposed to be a brief stay had turned into a tragedy in a place that was supposed to be safe.
© January 31, 2020, Sacramento, California, USA: Six lanes of Capital City Freeway traffic run under the Watt Avenue overpass near the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento. Kendra Czekaj, 12, was struck by a car and killed when she tried to join other AWOL teens in the median on January 15th. © Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

A chain linked fence and a brick wall surround part of the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento. Many children go AWOL by jumping over the fence in front of the facility. 'I don't like being kept behind gates,' said a 13-year-old boy after he jumped over it later that same night.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

A security officer sits on a picnic table inside the fence at the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento. Regulators have cited the home in the past for not having enough staff. That night several children jumped over the fence to go AWOL.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, left, speaks to her daughter ANGELICA, center, outside the fence surrounding the Children's Receiving Home in Sacramento. ''I sit out here and I protest to let her know that I'm here and I care, but it just sucks,'' she says wiping a stream of tears. 'It's just wrong when a child can go and hide in a place, and be mad at their mom for not letting them run the streets and do drugs.'
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, wearing a t-shirt saying: BO$$ LADY, is adjusted in her wheelchair by her mother FELICIA CLARK, 36, who cares for her since she went AWOL from the county’s foster care placement facility on the Auburn Boulevard campus, survived a car accident, and survives as a quadriplegic on an adjustable hospital bed in her dining room, Monday. Shortly after her accident she was placed back in her mother’s care.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, styles her daughter FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ's, 18, hair in her wheelchair while getting her ready for school. Above, is one of several pieces of artwork she drew of Mickey Mouse characters to remind her that even though she couldn't visit her in the hospital she still loved her, she said.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, left, placed positive messages on the walls of her townhome to remind her children to love one another as daughter PAULINA, right, helps adjust daughter FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, a quadriplegic. 'It's a never-ending step of getting her ready, feeding her, bathing her. This is a town home, my bathroom is upstairs so we have to give her bed baths.'
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, pushes daughter FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, wheelchair to catch the bus to school as her son DAVID CLARK shows his homework to his sister. 'We moved her here and been trying to figure out her new way of life. What that means is getting her back into school. All of my children have to go to school, education is key. I want her to do whatever she can with her brain. She's got full brain function. I don't want her to waste it,' she said. Her daughter died in June 2020 after suffering a stroke and aneurysm.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

A 12-year-old girl is escorted to a Sacramento Police car at the Children's Receiving Home. She said she’d been sleeping on a couch at the Centralized Placement Support Unit for 3 days after leaving her foster home. She often leaves the facility and goes AWOL, she said, “just to see if anyone will notice and follow me.”
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, shares a light moment with her mom FELICIA CLARK, 36, as while being hoisted in her lift to her wheelchair in her home in Sacramento. Clark had spent several hours dressing her, styling her hair, washing her, feeding her, suctioning the opening in her trachea when it became blocked, and then bundled her in blankets to go outside to protest at the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento where she once lived.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, suctions the opening in her daughter FELICIA BRENT-VALESQUEZ's, 18, trachea so she can breathe at their home in Sacramento. 'I have no training, I'm not a nurse but I'm doing everything for her,' said Clark. Her daughter was taken away by CPS (Child Protective Service) in 2016 but was returned home after going AWOL from the county’s foster care placement facility on the Auburn Boulevard campus. She later got into a car accident that left her paralyzed from the neck down. While in the hospital she was put into a medically induced coma to mitigate brain-swelling. She endured eight surgeries and nine months of hospitalization. She even died on the table during a procedure and was revived.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, sits in a hospital bed in February while recovering at home from a car accident that left her a quadriplegic. Prior to the accident when she was at the county’s foster care placement facility on the Auburn Boulevard campus she said she only needed to ask security to have staff open the gate and she would walk right out and go AWOL. She has a tattoo on her shoulder for a boy she was in a relationship with who died in Southside Park. Its inscribed with a life pulse beat, his day of passing, and the words “Until we meet again forever in my heart.”
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, protests outside the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento late into the evening in Sacramento on Friday, Valentine's Day. Clark, who has had all four of her children at one time removed by CPS (Child Protective Services), said, “I’m going to keep fighting. I feel like my family was enslaved and we are trying to fight off the slave catchers and slave masters. That’s honest to God what it feels like. 'I'm standing out there for my baby being paralyzed, I'm standing out there for girls who have died, for the children who have died and nobody knows their name, that's who I stand out there for.'
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, is bundled up in blankets in her wheelchair as she joins her mother FELICIA CLARK, 36, in protest outside the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento. 'It's hard to see the things that I see out there, but that's why I keep going back,' said Clark. 'I want to stand out there for just one Friday, and see nothing. I want to see no children, people doing what they're supposed to do, children leaving to go to do activities, parents coming in and happy to be part of some process.'
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, protests outside the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento with daughter FELICIA BRENT-VELASQUEZ, 18, wrapped in blankets in her wheelchair. 'It's hard to see the things I see out there but that's why I keep going back. I want to stand out there for one Friday and not see nothing. I want to see no children. I want to see people doing what they are supposed to do. Children leaving and going and doing activities, parents coming happy to be some type of process,' said Clark.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, wipes tears as she talks about the eight surgeries and nine months of hospitalization her daughter FELICIA BRENT-VALESQUEZ, 18, right, endured at their townhome. 'That's why I fought so hard for her to come home, so she would be able to have home living and be able to do things and have friends and have a life, have a quality of life,' said Clark.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

MICHELE BRYANT displays a picture in her lawyer's office of her daughter Kendra Czekaj,12. Kendra had been living at the Children's Receiving Home for 10 days when she joined a group of AWOL teens who ran onto the Capitol City Freeway. Kendra was struck by a car and killed.
© Renée C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

Michele Bryant holds her iPhone to display a picture of the notification that was left on her door by the Sacramento County Coroner's office when they tried to contact her the night her daughter Kendra died. 'I was so confused,' she said. 'How does this happen when they're supposed to protect her?
© Renée C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

MICHELE BRYANT wipes tears as she talks about the January death of her daughter Kendra Czekaj, 12. Kendra died chasing after another girl who had gone AWOL at the Children's Receiving Home in Sacramento. Kendra was placed by a judge at the group home after sexual abuse allegations surfaced against her father, Carewin Czekaj, who was arrested last March. At right is a family friend FELICIA MOHAMMED.
© Renée C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, arrives at Lind Brother's funeral home to have a final look at her daughter Felicia Brent-Valeszuez's body before her cremation on Tuesday. Her daughter died of an aneurysm on June 10 after months of her mom nursing her at home and several trips back and fourth to the hospital. She said while in the hospital she was really sad and thought, 'She is just watching life instead of like really being in life.'
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, can't part with a piece of her daughter Felicia Brent-Velasquez's, 'Hoyer lift, while her hospital bed was removed previously. 'Can I just keep this?' she sobbed after a worker had removed her bed and other medical supplies. She was allowed to keep it.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

Grieving mom FELICIA CLARK, 36, wearing a FUCK COVID-19 t-shirt, hands to her eyes as she breaks down in tears, while waiting for workers to remove her daughter Felicia Brent-Velasquez's hospital bed and medical supplies in the dining room where the quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, had relied on her family for her life on June 18, 2020. At 19, her life had been cut short and she suffered a stroke that led to an aneurysm and died on June 10. After she had gone AWOL from the county’s foster care placement facility on the Auburn Boulevard campus she survived a life changing car accident that left her a quadriplegic and after eight months in the hospital Clark had become her primary caregiver.
© Renée C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, sobs after receiving her daughter Felicia's ashes alongside her mother ARTEENIS VELASQUEZ, center, and son DAVID, right, inside Lind Brother's Funeral Home. Within moments they joined together for an emotional hug. Although the decorative cremation Urn had not arrived when she called on Friday she said she couldn't stand being separated from her daughter's remains anymore, so she arrived first thing on Monday to pick them up. 'I just didn't want them locked in some cabinet,' she said. 'Don't cry mommy, you can always hold that (the ashes) and feel better,' said David.
© Renee C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

FELICIA CLARK, 36, left, throws her head back in despair while clenching her daughter Felicia Brent-Velasquez's ashes as her mother ARTEENIS VELASQUEZ holds her death certificate while comforting her outside the Lind Brother's Funeral Home on Monday. 'It just hurts, I feel like we were cheated out of time,' said Clark.
© Renée C. Byer/Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Wire

A remembrance for Felicia Brent-Velasquez, 19, was held on Sunday. She was one of many children who go AWOL from the Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento each year. After going AWOL from the Children's Home she was in a car accident that left her paralyzed from the neck down. She died from a stroke on June 10, 2020. She was the second child to die of a car accident related death.
© Renee C. Byer/ZUMA Wire