Hayward Sues Alameda County Over Foster Youth Center Management

HAYWARD, CA — The city of Hayward has filed a lawsuit against Alameda County over what the city says is "willful mismanagement" of a transitional center for foster youth.

According to the lawsuit, the city says children frequently go missing from the Alameda County Assessment Center.

The lawsuit claims children are exposed to or coerced into drug use at the center operated by the

Alameda County Social Services Agency where assaults, other forms of violence, sex trafficking and prostitution also allegedly occur.

Managed day-to-day by the nonprofit West Coast Children's Clinic, the lawsuit, which comes after the city's multiple attempts to get the county to intervene at the transitional center, asks the county to cease operations of the center "until procedures and policies can be put in place" to protect the health and safety of foster youth.

"It is supposed to be a safe place for foster youth — from birth to 21 years old — to temporarily stay until they are placed in a new home," Bay City News Service said in an article published on CBS News Bay Area.

After the Diligence Security Group took over security following the Alameda County Sheriff's Office withdrawal of onsite security from the center in mid-February calls to Hayward police and firefighter-paramedics "skyrocketed, resulting in over 750 police hours spent on center-related calls and incidents," according to the lawsuit.

"The city has deployed officers from the Hayward Police Station on hundreds of occasions since mid-February to investigate complaints of missing children, drug overdoses, assaults, human trafficking, and sexual exploits of children within the Center and the adjacent neighborhood," Hayward City Attorney Michael Lawson wrote in a letter to Alameda County dated June 14. "The onus should not be on the City of Hayward to devote so many of its limited public safety resources to a single county facility."

As of press time, Monday, June 26, Alameda County's attorney has not commented on the lawsuit.

Read more on CBS News here.