Gay teen-agers

New Jersey places them with similar foster parents

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey foster care officials are quietly placing a few homosexual teen-agers in homes with homosexual foster parents, but the practice is not a statewide policy.

The first home was established in 1975, and at least two are operating now; state officials confirmed yesterday. It was the first public acknowledgement of the practice.

"The policy is informal," said Harold Rosenthal, an official of the Division of Youth and Family Services, a branch of the state Human Services Department. "We do not have a policy that actively recrints or actively denies these types of homes."

senthal said it is not known wany children or homes were involved. New Jersey has 9,100 children in foster care homes.

Officials of two national childadvocacy groups →→ Emily Gardner of the Child Welfare League in New York and Mary Lee Allen of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington said they have never

heard of similar practices in other states.

Anne Burns of the New Jersey Human Services Department said she knew of only two homosexual homes, one headed by a single lesbian and the other headed by a lesbian couple. She said there may be as many as five homes in the state. She would not give names, locations or ages of the children.

She said the two lesbians were the state's first officially sanctioned homosexual parents. They took in a 15-year-old runaway boy on their own, and the Division of Youth and situation and approved it. Later the Family Services learned of the agency placed other homosexual children in the couple's care.

"Some heterosexual foster parents just can't deal with the kinds of problems these kids have, and some of these kids don't function well with other kids in the foster, families," Mrs. Burns said.

Foster parents care for runaway or unwanted children under the state's supervision. They receive about $200 a month per child.

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